Beloved – Ft McMurray's Homepage

‘Beloved’ Author and Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison Is Dead at 88

The Nobel Prize–winning novelist Toni Morrison died last night (August 5) at the age of 88, according to CNN. The cause of death has not been announced.

Morrison, the author of such acclaimed books as Beloved (for which she won both the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award in 1988), The Bluest Eye, Sula, and Song of Solomon, has been a celebrated force in American literature for decades, helping to document the black experience in the United States from her unique perspective.

In 1993 she became the first black woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize in literature and, in 2012 then President Barack Obama honored her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Describing her impact ahead of her Nobel acceptance, the Swedish Academy, which bestows the prize, said her work “gives life to an essential aspect of American reality.”

The author was born in 1931 in Lorain, Ohio, where she was raised and lived until she enrolled at Howard University in 1949. Morrison went on to earn a master’s degree from Cornell University and became a professor before becoming a book editor at Random House, where she helped to elevate a number of black writers like Chinua Achebe and Angela Davis.

Toni Morrison with President Barack Obama before being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012.Andrew Harrer/Getty Images

She didn’t publish her first novel, The Bluest Eye, until the age of 39 in 1970. Oprah Winfrey selected both Song of Solomon and The Bluest Eye for her famous book club during her talk-show era, which helped bring Morrison’s work to a new generation of readers. Winfrey also coproduced a film adaptation of Beloved. “It’s impossible to actually imagine the American literary landscape without a Toni Morrison,” Winfrey said of Morrison in 2018. “She is our conscience, she is our seer, she is our truth-teller.”

In 2007, Glamour named Morrison one of its Women of the Year. In talking about her work, she said, “There were a lot of books by black writers that were very political and confrontational and all about guys. What about young black girls who had never been the center of anybody’s literary intention?

“No one had written them yet,” she said, “so I wrote them.”

Morrison also wrote a number of children’s books, and her last novel, God Help the Child, was published in 2015.

“We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives,” Morrison said in her Nobel acceptance speech.

Source link

Urban Decay Is Discontinuing Its Beloved Naked Smoky Palette

For someone who loves makeup, I personally suck at using it. I buy, try three shades of, then store hordes of makeup palettes in the top drawer of my dresser; all to be looked at and rarely swept across my face again. There’s one exception to that pile of eyeshadow sets, bronzing trios, and color corrector cases gathering dust, though, and that’s my Urban Decay Naked Smoky palette. Put it in my hand and suddenly I go from passive collector to full-on beauty vlogger.

The point is, I’m obsessed with this palette. Sure, I’m obsessed with all of Urban Decay’s Naked palettes. I know I don’t have to explain why to you because if you clicked this, you love Urban Decay’s Naked palettes. The shades are pigmented; they’re easy to blend; the brush that comes with isn’t a flimsy throwaway and it actually gives good results; there’s rarely a shade in the bunch that goes unwanted, the list honestly goes on. But my affection for Naked Smoky is deeper than the rest. I actually use this palette. All the g-d time.

Where a lot of palettes now chase trends (looking at you Naked Heat), the Smoky’s got the perfect mix of matte and metallic silver, black, and brown, plus one beautiful shimmery plum. My go-to for nights out is as follows: Sweep “Thirteen” all over my lid to cancel out redness and follow with “Dirtysweet” on top for shimmer. “Password” goes in my crease, then a mix of “Armor” (the best gunmetal silver out there) and “Dagger” from the center out, and finally my favorite (the plum) “Smolder” just on the outside and smudged into my lower lashline. The whole thing is topped off with a heavy dose of Better Than Sex.

Naked Smoky’s swatches (from left to right): High, Dirtysweet, Radar, Armor, Slanted, Dagger, Black Market, Smolder, Password, Whiskey, Combust, Thirteen

I’ve worn this combo to all my biggest life events. Graduation night, my moving-to-NYC party, my best friend’s bachelorette. It brings out the blue in my eyes in a way that (I personally think) make them even more captivating. They create a true, dark smoky eye. So, when news broke this week that Urban Decay is discontinuing my precious, it cut deep.

To know why such misfortune would be brought upon us, I reached out to the brand for an answer. It’s not a replacement, but it does bode well that a better alternative is possibly on the horizon. Here’s the statement reps gave me:

“At Urban Decay, we are never ‘done’; this means we always look for
ways to make our products better. Every time we create a new product,
we come at it with a fresh perspective and make it technologically
innovative and relevant for now. Unfortunately, this sometimes means
discontinuing products people love, in order to launch new products we
think you’ll love even more!”

There is, however, a shade of “Armor” lining. As part of the palette’s mass liquidation, UD has slashed the price of it by 50 percent everywhere. Ulta, Sephora, urbandecay.com, at all of them, the palette is only $27—starting this week until the Naked Smoky’s gone for good. Luckily, I’ve already got two; one I keep in my drawer and the other in my travel bag. But for the rest of you who haven’t gotten in on its magic, or just want a cheap score, now’s your last chance. I highly recommend it.

Source link