Author: unexpectedphila

THIS WEEK: Join Kate for her Fringe Festival Show – Sept. 8 & 13!

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Houses built from bottles.  Room-sized loaves of bread.  A restroom in a redwood tree.  Mid-century Americans could see it all – and now you can, too – along with dinosaur parks, wacky food festivals, and museums celebrating everything from atomic bombs to cypress knees…

15_09_07 1 KS bread(Your tax dollars at work at the Fort Hayes Experiment Station in Kansas)

Join me on Tuesday, Sept. 8 (7:30 pm) or Sunday, Sept. 13 (5 pm) for “Are We There Yet? Roadside Delights of the 1950s and 1960s”, a free-wheeling postcard tour of America’s oddest tourist attractions, all part of the 2015 Philadelphia Fringe Festival.

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TAKE OUR NEW DUMPSTER DIVER HOUSE TOUR…& MEET GEORGE FELICE

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When we launched our Unexpected Philadelphia website this summer, we included behind-the-scenes tours of 5 wildly imaginative homes belonging to our fellow Dumpster Divers – that merry band of found-object artists and collectors who have exhibited, socialized and produced up-cycled art together since 1992.

Today, we’re adding a photo tour of the fun and fabulous home of George Felice, who joined the Divers in their very first year.

15_08_26 1 Divers_Bilyk(The  Divers’ 2014 annual awards banquet at Philly’s Famous 4th Street Deli – and, yes, that’s us at the far left and George at the top center.  Photo by I. George Bilyk)

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Don’t Miss the Neil Benson Photo Exhibit: Phila. Movers+ Shakers

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Richard Nixon and the MOVE conflagration.  Miss America and Mick Jagger.  Pope John II and Phillies third baseman Mike Schmidt.  Mayor Rizzo with Queen Elizabeth. (Huh?)

Before Philadelphia Dumpster Divers co-founder Neil Benson embarked on his full-time, found-object art career, he was a staff photographer for Philadelphia Magazine (1975-90), and his Philly-centric images appeared in Time, Life, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News.

15_08_03 1 Neil Agnew NixonEarly Benson:  Spiro Agnew and Richard Nixon strike a pose at Independence Hall for the signing of the Manpower Revenue Sharing Act on October 20, 1972 Continue reading →

Kate Out on the Fringe…uhm, Festival

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It was the first week of June, and I was panicked: I had two weeks to finish our new website and learn how to blog.  Dave was preparing for a weeklong business trip, and half our third floor was torn up for renovations.

So naturally I did what I always do when I’m overscheduled and terminally stressed:  I started a new project.

“WHAT  DO  YOU  THINK?”

“So, Dave,” I happily called as he dragged his laptop upstairs after work,  “I thought I’d sign up for the Philadelphia Fringe Festival in September.  I already have a funny slide show – the one about wacky tourist destinations from the 1950s and ’60s – so it won’t take any work to schedule some performances, especially if I do them right here in my studio.

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The Great Photo Album Adventure (Part 4)

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(Kate resumes the story….)

It was March, 2014 as I nervously approached Virginia Tavani Romano’s front door with a laptop full of photos in one hand and a potted plant in the other.  For months, I’d been poring over Art Tavani’s magical 1960s photo album, trying to unlock its mysteries. Now, only four blocks from home, I was about to meet his sister and her nieces Suzanne, Clair and Elaine.

“Let’s hope they have a sense of humor,” I fretted, yanking at my newly dyed violet and teal hair…..

15_7_13 1 Kate Hair_0652

(Hey, even middle-aged girls just wanna have fun…)

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The Great Photo Album Adventure (Part 3)

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(Back from vacation, Kate continues the story….)

Discovering that the mystery owner of our star-studded 1960s photo album was named Arthur Tavani and that he once worked for two South Philadelphia newspapers was pretty exciting….

15_7_8 1 Bennett(Art Tavani,  with his trusty camera,  joins the crush around singer Tony Bennett.
And,  yes,  the patterned carpet identifies this as Palumbo’s.)

Discovering that Art’s sister Virginia lived just 4 blocks from our house was….well, disconcerting. Continue reading →

A Brief Intermission….

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Our Unexpected Philadelphia website and blog have been online for a full two weeks now (yah!), and we’re taking a quick break to recover from the last six months of preparation.  (And yes, that scraping sound you heard was us dragging ourselves into the 20th — not totally a joke — century.)

15_6_28 Outta Here 6419_

We’ll be back online after July 4th, but check out our latest post about Dumpster Diver Joel Spivak and his wacky National Hot Dog Month activities. (After all, what would summer in Philadelphia be without a South Street hot dog crawl, complete with jalapeno and crab salad toppings?)

Enjoy the holiday, and we’ll see you around town….!

Kate & Dave

Hot Dogs with a Side of Dumpster Divers

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What do you do if you’re browsing the Internet and read that July is National Hot Dog Month?

If you’re Philadelphia Dumpster Diver Joel Spivak, and you have a big heart and unlimited imagination (check out these photos of his home and handiwork), you stage pop-up exhibits and hand out free hot dogs – lots of them – everywhere from North Philly to South Street.

15_6_27 3 Joel_CM1978(Joel Spivak in his 2013 Philly Hot Dog Month t-shirt)

This year’s improbable celebration kicked-off Friday on Philadelphia’s Fabric Row, in front of Maxie’s Daughter Fabrics, where Joel and friends handed out 200 free hot dogs to confused-but-happy pedestrians….

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The Great Photo Album Adventure (Part 2)

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Kate continues the story….  (Click here for Part 1.)

It was January, 2013. Our 8,001 moving boxes had been emptied and recycled, and our new walls were painted — sometimes three or four different times.  And, yes, we could have easily opened a used-paint store from our kitchen colors alone….

15_6_23 1 Kitchen

Finally, there was no use delaying it:  It was time to open the 1960s  mystery photo album.

Arthur Tavani Album Continue reading →

The Great Photo Album Adventure (Part 1)

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Sometimes the biggest adventures are the ones you don’t see coming….

It was April, 2012 and we had just moved into our South Philly home, which meant we could barely find the bed, let alone the sheets, and we needed a trapeze to navigate the shoulder-high boxes.

After three frustrating days and many tears (some of them Kate’s), we finally did the sensible thing:  We ran away to the Columbus (NJ) flea market.  At least if we bought junk there, we’d be able to find it.

But when we hooked up with our  friend Jerry at the Bagel Bums booth, he announced that he had a housewarming gift waiting in his trunk.  Jerry (not his real name; we’ll get our revenge later….) has a wild sense of humor, so we followed him through the parking lot with more than a little trepidation.

THE  MYSTERY  PHOTO  ALBUM

What could it be?  A Mayor Rizzo bobblehead doll?  A second-hand Eagles beanbag chair?  But when he threw open the trunk, we saw…..well, something we couldn’t quite identify:

Arthur Tavani Album

“Wow,” I said, “I’ve always wanted one of those…” Continue reading →