Camels paraded outside the Penn Museum (3260 South St.)  yesterday as part of the “Secrets of the Silk Road” exhibit, which opens this weekend. The camels will be back today and we suspect they may enjoy the weather a little more. (Photo by Julija Kulneva)

Sheesh. We forgot to include Secrets of the Silk Road in the weekend preview. This looks like it will be a really fabulous exhibit. It opens today and runs through June. But this weekend looks especially fabulous. This is from the museum:

A host of special sights, sounds, and activities are in store for visitors at the grand opening weekend of Secrets of the Silk Road. Camels will be circling the Museum, stopping for guest encounters and hourly presentations about life along the ancient routes. Central Asian silks, textiles, furniture, and other trading route goods will be for sale in the Museum Shop. Enjoy performances, craft demonstrations, and a café with tea and Chinese pastries inspired by ancient foods in the exhibition.

And here’s a video of curator Victor Mair:

The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. today and Sunday. Museum admission is $10 for adults and $6 for kids and youth.

Here’s a schedule. (Oh, did we mention that there would be real camels?)

Camels

11:00 am – 3:00 pm

Two Bactrian camels (at ease in blistering heat-or freezing cold!) circle the Penn Museum, stopping for guest encounters and hourly presentations about life along the ancient routes, from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm.

Storytelling

Saturday Only at 11:00 am and 2:00 pm

Michele Belluomini of Blue Deer Storytelling tells traditional tales from Silk Road lands.

Dance Performance

1:00 pm

Young dancers from Chinese For Families present a short program of Central Asian dance.

Drum Performance

10:30am, 12:30 pm, and 3:30 pm

Silk Road hand drumming demonstration with Joseph Tayoun.

Music Performance

11:30 am and again at 1:30 pm

Classical Asian musician Kurt Jung performs on the traditional Chinese zither.

Get a Henna Tattoo

Saturday and Sunday, 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm

Henna is a popular plant dye used to create body tattoos throughout India and other regions of the Silk Road. First come first served.

Here are a few select events this weekend:

Friday

• Great Expectations • 8 p.m. • Curio Theatre (815 S. 48th) •Tickets $10 to $15.

Join the Curio Theatre performers as they explore Charles Dickens’ world of Pip, Estella, Miss Havisham, Joe and a small army of other characters in a classic story of love, revenge, redemption and the discovery of self. Preview performances will be Feb. 4, 5 and 10. The play opens Feb. 11. Jared Reed adapted the play and will direct it.

• Serafin String Quartet • 8 p.m. • Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts • General admission $25

Serafin String Quartet debuted in New York in 2004 to a sell-out crowd at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, and has consistently received rave reviews in the press and ovations in the concert hall. New York Concert Review has applauded the quartet for their “excellent music making” and “uncommonly fine interpretation.” Enjoy Sky Quartet by 2010 Grammy Award and Pulitzer Prize winning Philadelphia composer, Jennifer Higdon.

Saturday

• SAT Prep for Teens • 1 p.m. • Walnut Street West Library (201 S. 40th St.)

• Peanut Butter and Jams Welcomes Bollywood Dance • 10 a.m. and 12 p.m. • World Cafe Live (3025 Walnut St.) • Tickets $7 to $10

This workshop is a unique fusion of Bollywood beats, Indian folk dance moves and western style with an exhilarating style of dance technique, all in an easy-to-understand, format that anyone can follow. It’s a great way to experience healthy physical activity, broaden cultural understanding, develop musical skills and have fun. All Workshops are designed and conducted by celebrity choreographer Rujuta Vaidya who has the credit of choreographing this year’s Oscar ceremony as well as the Bollywood dance routines for superstars like Britney Spears, Cheetah Girls and Black Eyed Peas among others

The 10 a.m. show is for kids 4-11 and the Noon show is a fitness workshop for teens and adults.

Sunday

• Charles Dicken Birthday Party • 2 p.m. • Griffith Hall (University of the Sciences, 43rd and Kingsessing Mall) • Free

Dramatic readings and party refreshments. Sponsored by the Friends of Clark Park.

• Super Square Dance for beginners • 8 p.m. • The Rotunda (4014 Walnut St.) • $5 to $10

This could be all kinds of fun. Featuring Jamie Herman and Marian Macrae Band. Your caller is Keith Brand.

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:

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.