Actor Yara Shahidi reveals a sweet secret...a former graphic designer’s fanciful cakes turn icing into high art... and more.

Turning the Tide

The ocean’s trash is Washed Ashore’s treasure. Volunteers at the Oregon arts nonprofit have used 25 tons of discarded flip-flops, bottle caps, toys, and other beach debris to create more than 80 larger-than-life sculptures of marine animals whose health is endangered by plastic pollution. Learn how you can lend a hand (and where Daisy the Polar Bear, Priscilla the Parrotfish, and the gang will be exhibited next) at washedashore.org.

The Showings Must Go On

Across the country, movie theaters are shuttered and slushy machines are silent. But thanks to a trio of quickthinking producers—Tribeca Enterprises, Imax, and AT&T—entertainment is coming soon to a big screen near you. The Tribeca Drive-In series, which kicked off June 25, is delivering a selection of contemporary films, cinematic classics, and special music and sports events to old-school venues and other outdoor spaces nationwide. Learn more at tribecafilm.com—and start stockpiling your Junior Mints now.

The Notorious L.O.C.

The

Think hip-hop and the Library of Congress have 5 High Five A WHOLE HANDFUL OF THINGS TO CHEER ABOUT THIS MONTH! nothing in common? You haven’t checked out B Y M E L I S S A G O L D B E R G Citizen DJ, an interactive tool that lets you make your own beats using 32,000 samples (and counting) from the library’s audio and video collections, including a recording of Franklin D. Roosevelt addressing Congress, the tinkly score of a 1900 silent film about a cartoonist, an interview with Olivia Newton-John, and so much more. Sounds like a rapper’s—and nonrapper’s—delight. (citizen-dj.labs.loc.gov)

XX Marks the Spot Any idea where America’s first female dentist set up shop? Or where Emma Willard established the country’s first secondary school for women? In honor of the centennial of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, the National Trust for Historic Preservation is crowdsourcing 1,000 locations where ladies made history—including sites both landmarked (the home where Susan B. Anthony was arrested for voting in 1872) and overlooked (the house where Juliette Gordon Low held the first-ever Girl Scouts meeting, below). To help put women on the map, visit savingplaces.org.

Constellation Prize

Since 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has roamed galaxies far, far away, capturing stellar snapshots of distant planets, exploding stars, and other cosmic wonders. To mark the project’s 30th anniversary, NASA went back through all those shots and chose 366—one for every day of the year—for an online gallery. Enter your birthday or any day (the nebula shown here was shot on February 8, 2014) and get ready to see something out of this world. (imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/hst_bday)

You Do WHAT? Cinema’s behind-the-scenes stars finally get their close-up.

ONCE UPON A TIME in Hollywood, before the advent of hyperreal digital photography and brain-bending CGI, whole worlds were created from powdered pigments and giant bolts of fabric. Meticulously crafted backdrops brought 18th-century French courts, sweeping Western plains, and craggy alien planets to life. But the studio painters who made them were unsung masters: “There are no signatures on these pieces,” says Thomas Walsh, a production designer and former president of the Art Directors Guild. “They weren’t created to stand out.”

Countless backdrops were produced between the 1910s and 1960s, Tinseltown’s golden age. Some—imagine the misty trees behind the gazebo in The Sound of Music —are lodged in cultural memory. Others, from more obscure flicks (ever heard of Skirts Ahoy! or Quick, Before It Melts ?), not so much. Either way, the artistry is undeniable. So in 2017, when Walsh learned that J.C. Backings, a prominent backdrop rental company that owns thousands of vintage assets from MGM, among other studios, was going to shed more than 200 decades-old canvases, he swooped in. “An image of the New York skyline or a generic village can still be rented out,” says Walsh. “The ones with no commercial value were just sleeping at the bottom of piles.”

That first crop of long-folded treasures has since become the Art Directors Guild Backdrop Recovery Project, an effort to archive the heirlooms. Each is cataloged as Walsh pursues his ultimate goal: finding appreciative homes for the canvases—whether in museums, universities, or a film buff ’s private collection. Not all would-be owners can safely exhibit the titans (“Someone in Illinois wants one for a silo, but that won’t work”), and not all pieces are easily placed (“Who wants a 90-foot piece of Middle Eastern desert?”). But Walsh believes every cinematic artwork deserves a bow: “It’d be criminal to go into the future forgetting our past.” The end. —ZOE DONALDSON From top: A s till from The Sound of Music (1965) with Julie Andrews as Fräulein Maria; the scene’s backdrop in 2019; Eva Marie Saint and C ar y Grant in Nor th by Nor thwest; another s taggering Mount Rushmore backdrop from Hitchcock ’s 1959 thriller.

My Best PET

Former White House photographer and Instagram sensation Pete Souza has a shell of a time with his Russian tortoise, Charlotte.

ON HOW THEY MET About 20 years ago, our daughter brought Charlot te home af ter her friend— Charlot te’s original owner—decided she didn’t want a tor toise anymore. Of course, kids grow up, move out of the house, and leave their pet s behind....

ON HAPPY MEALS Charlot te mos tly eat s grains, but on occasion we give her a piece of fruit or vegetable as a treat. Without fail, she ends up with a bit of s trawberr y or banana on her beak, which she’s totally oblivious to. It ’s always a funny sight. ON AC TS OF FAITH I say Charlot te put s up with people, because I hones tly think she’d rather we not be here. Obviously, she needs my wife and me for food and shelter, but beyond that we’re probably jus t a bother. That said, she is incredibly trus ting of us. Sometimes she’ll sleep with her head out side her shell, which is unusual; most tur tles retreat inside for protec tive purposes. She even let s us pet her on the head.

ON YARD WORK We have a cabin in Michigan where we spend some of the summer. If it ’s warm and sunny, I’ll take Charlot te out side. You have to watch her, though. Originally, she came with a mate, Peppers, but he escaped several summers ago and never returned. So now we keep a much closer eye on Charlot te, especially because she really loves to explore. At least, I think that ’s what she’s doing. Who knows what ’s in her mind!

—A S TOLD TO M.G.

Follow Charlotte’s adventures on Instagram @charlottethetor toise.

Make/Believe

One baker’s winning approach: icing, icing, baby.

KAT LOGAN’S 18thbirthday cake was more than a cake—it was a feat of engineering. The tiered confection was shaped like a castle, rigged with a bubbling fountain, and draped in tiny blinking lights—all the handiwork of Tita (“aunt” in Filipino) Grace, the baking maestro in Logan’s family for 40-plus years. “She always goes all out,” says Logan, who lives in Sydney. “I have 13 cousins—we’re now in our 30s—and we still ask Tita Grace to make our birthday cakes.”

Logan doesn’t share her aunt’s penchant for decorative water features, but she did inherit her love of baking. So when the artist and graphic designer found herself in a professional funk 11 years ago (“I thought I’d get a job at some fabulous magazine, but I ended up working for the government”), her brother Dustin suggested she launch a cupcake side hustle. The siblings converted their parents’ garage into a bare-bones kitchen and got to work, with Logan whipping up batters and frostings and Dustin delivering the goods. Five years and thousands of orders later, they opened a brick-and-mortar store, Buttercream Bakery.

The shop’s sweet spot is Logan’s one-of-a-kind handpainted cakes. They started as experiments, but once she posted them— impressionistic florals, Jackson Pollock–esque splatters—on Instagram, customers couldn’t get enough. Rather than plan just-so peonies or perfect pine-green stems, Logan lets things evolve. Using an actual palette, she dips a paintbrush or a palette knife into dollops of buttercream (all vanilla to avoid scrambled flavors) and mixes colors before applying them. The process is fluid yet finicky; a single cake can take five hours. But when the icing gets tough, Logan calls in her secret weapon: “Tita Grace is always willing to lend a hand,” she says, “and yes, she peddles my work to her friends.” —Z.D. Clockwise from top: Logan perfects a cake for a baby shower in January; this 2018 confection, the first in her floral series, was called “Still Life with Flowers”; layered brushstrokes inspired by a client’s daughter’s birthday dress. For more of Logan’s creations, go to buttercream.com.au.