Culture with Schlaraffia in Philadelphia means art its members make themselves. At the Pennburg in Warminster the Sassen of the Filadelfia (128) offer their own poems, talks, songs, rhymed complaints and quick replies in German, and guests listen. Once a year the Reych even invites Schlaraffen around the globe to a contest of the arts.
The Bell Congress: freedom set to verse
The best-known custom of the Filadelfia grew out of the city's most famous object. Rt Fil-Bis founded the Glockenkongress, the Bell Congress, as an annual festive Sippung paying tribute, in the words of its statutes, to the highest good on earth: freedom. Each congress sets a theme; the 47th asks for contributions on the line High above the lowly life of earth. Anyone living more than 350 miles away may mail in a Fernfechsung, a remote contribution, and for the 40th congress 42 of them arrived. The hosts compete out of competition, so every honor goes to a guest. Two ladders of titles reward the effort, one for those who ride in, from Glöckner up to Ehrenmeister der Glockengießergilde, and one for the remote poets, topped by the gloriously named GlockenKlöppelputzer-Ehrenmeister. Medals run from bronze to gold with diamonds, and whoever wins a higher one hands back the lower.
Rhyme for every occasion
Verse is the house currency here. On April Fools' Day the Meckersippung permits complaints, strictly one per Sasse and strictly in rhyme. The election evening ends with tales of court jesters, and an online evening titled Diese Kunst ist zum Schreien leaves it to each member whether the art in question makes him scream with laughter or despair. Another online evening, Musik und noch mehr, carries its and more on purpose, because with Schlaraffen you never know what else is coming.
Painters, vintners and a burning sugarloaf
The themes reach deep into the region's cultural life. One evening honored Susan Macdowell Eakins, a painter of Philadelphia long overshadowed by her husband. Another, devoted to the vintners of the Rhine, promised that anyone unable to tell Riesling from Schuylkill water would learn the difference. In winter the Feuerzangenbowle evening, shared with the Circle of Friends, lights the sugarloaf in honor of a film every guest can quote by heart.
A German bookshelf in Philadelphia
Few American cities have such deep German roots in letters. Germantown was founded in 1683 under Franz Daniel Pastorius, a jurist and poet from Franconia. The German Society of Pennsylvania keeps the Joseph P. Horner Memorial Library, founded in 1817 and described as the largest private German-language library outside Germany; for about four decades, until 2000, the Burg of the Filadelfia was in that very house. The Reych adds to this heritage in the most direct way possible: it writes new German verse every season.
Come and listen
Guests are not asked to contribute. The themes of the season, in Warminster and online, are listed in the Filadelfia calendar, and the answers for first-time visitors explain the practical side. For the idea behind it all, the English network pages describe how Schlaraffia began and what Schlaraffen share.
Come and listen?
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