This week’s issue of Philadelphia Weekly includes the story of West Philly couple Amanda Kole and Rachel Turanski, whose journey to Iowa last summer to marry is the subject of a documentary due out this spring.

The couple says that the film, Married in Spandex, is not overtly political and was never meant to be a film at all. It was supposed to be just a wedding video that included footage of their 18-hour trek to Iowa, one of five states where same-sex marriage is legal (plus the District of Columbia), and their wedding.

“I never thought we’d be people who were political or controversial. We just wanted to exercise our rights, and we had to go to Iowa to do it,” Kole told reporter Michael Alan Goldberg.

Kole’s sister and her sister’s boyfriend, both filmmakers, recorded the trip and the wedding, which featured a cast of zany characters but also family members who are conservative but came to accept, and enjoy, the wedding.

“We’re not Michael Moore-ing it up,” Turanski laughs. “Fighting fire with fire doesn’t do anything but make people more angry. Ideally, people will watch this and think, ‘They love each other, they’re stable, they have great jobs, they’re hilarious, they’re putting good into the world—why not just let them get married and have it be legal in Pennsylvania?’”

Here is a video released to help raise money for the production of the film:

His name is Oreo. He is lost from the 4700 block of Cedar. Not
wearing a collar, has no microchip. He is very friendly. If you see him or are able to safely capture him
please call:
267-978-2048 or 267-235-6692

This is from Linda Lee. Thanks Linda.

An Amanada Hamtil piece.

A group of Philadelphia artists will be hosting a benefit show, sale and raffle tonight at 5:30 p.m. at City Tap House (3925 Walnut St.) for victims of the Jan. 10 Windermere Court Apartments fire in West Philly.

Amanda Hamtil, Gaby Heit, Christopher Kontoes and S. Leser are members of the artist’s group “In Here.” They work in photography, acrylic painting, pen and ink and pencil drawing. Twenty percent of all their sales will go to the Salvation Army West Philadelphia Fire Distress Relief fund. The artists will also donate pieces to a raffle that will also be held tonight at the City Tap House.

You have probably stepped on Toynbee Tile a hundred times – maybe a thousand times – and never took notice. The little cryptic messages are embedded in streets in about 30 cities in the United States and South America. You can find them all over Center City Philadelphia. The Toynbee Tiles mystery intrigued Jon Foy, a West Philly resident, so much that he taught himself filmmaking and cleaned houses to pay for a documentary he shot and produced called “Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles.”

His efforts were recently noticed. Big time. Foy has won the U.S. Documentary Competition Directing Award at the Sundance Film Festival.

“I had no idea that such things were possible in life. Just a few weeks ago I was a housecleaner,” Foy said. “This is for all the artists working in obscurity out there.” “Never give up, because if you do, you know what will happen. If you don’t give up, you don’t know what will happen.”

Here is an impromptu interview with Foy soon after he received his award. Needless to say, if John cleans your house you may want to start looking for someone else.

Join fellow tree enthusiasts (tree pruning enthusiasts to be exact) for the Second Annual Limb-Up this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Woodlands Cemetery (40th and Woodland).

The Limb Up is a discussion/workshop in starting a neighborhood pruning club. The event also includes pruning instruction followed by a potluck lunch. The workshop will take place outside the cemetery’s main gates. No experience is necessary.  The lunch and discussion will follow at the cemetery mansion, which will be open at 9:30 a.m. for potluck drop offs. Please RSVP to Christine at cwilleford – at – pennhort.org.

The Limb Up  is sponsored by the Pennsylvania Horticulture Society and its Tree Tenders program and UC Green.

If you need an intern, here’s a chance to give a kid their first break in the work world. And it’s free. The Enterprise Center (4548 Market St.) will host the West Philadelphia Youth Workforce Summit on Thursday and Friday from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. to provide employers the chance to hire student interns for 6 to 15 hours per week at no cost to them.

The internships are compensated through the Philadelphia Youth Network, a co-sponsor of this week’s event, and their “Work Ready” program. The students available for internships are pre-screened and will be on hand at the Summit with resumes and presentations to market themselves.

Summit organizers stressed that even if businesses are unable to hire an intern for the spring they should still send representatives. Part of the point of the Summit is to help students practice the work-related skills they have been working on over the year.

Check out the video below for more on Work Ready and the Philadelphia Youth Network.