Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Sprechen Sie Chicken Ranch?

Folks, this is very, very cool. It's been in the works since late May, and has finally come to fruition: a write-up on the Chicken Ranch in Spiegel Online: Texas' berüchtigtstes Freudenhaus. The German-language publication is the online companion to Der Speigel, one of the most influential news publications in Europe. The article's author, Jasmin Lörchner, and I spent quite a lot of time discussing the history of the Chicken Ranch by phone and email over the past few months, and I think the end result turned out quite nicely! If nothing else, I learned how to say "Chicken Ranch" in German: Hühnerfarm.

I say "think" because I don't actually read German, which means I've had to rely on Google Translate to parse the article. If you've ever gone down that route, you'll know that translation software is an inexact science at best, and occasionally results in some unintentionally hilarious reading. You can read the imperfect translation here: Texas' infamous House of Pleasure. The title actually uses the word "berüchtigtstes," which confounded Google. I poked around online and found that it meant, loosely, "to be thought of negatively" or somesuch, so "infamous" seemed an appropriate substitute in this context. I also learned my newest favorite word in German--Freudenhaus, which means "house of pleasure." Tell me the Best Little Freudenhaus in Texas doesn't just trip off the tongue!

There's also a nifty photo gallery featuring some of the images that appear in Inside the Texas Chicken Ranch. And remember, folks, those German-language rights to the book are still available!

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