by RobertTownsend | Nov 9, 2019 | Book Reviews, Family, Germany
On 16-17 October, The United States Holocaust Museum sponsored Patrice’s 89-year-old Uncle Kurt Maier, Emeritus Librarian, Library of Congress (German collection), lectures at Chicago’s Harold Washington Library. Kurt, a Holocaust survivor with a wicked...
by RobertTownsend | Sep 17, 2017 | Croatia, Germany, Wisconsin
On 10 August 2017, in Bergerac, France my daughter, Michelle Elisabeth Townsend, married. Michelle gave me 45 seconds to summarize before the assembled my impressions, recollections, hopes and fears. I wanted five days. Patrice made me sit down, write what I wanted to...
by RobertTownsend | Sep 9, 2014 | Germany, Publishing, Travel
It has been a long road across storied lands – Croatia, Germany and the United Arab Emirates before I go to the farm. Patrice is teaching these two months in Colorado, and felt I would be underfoot, so…I’ve come to Dubai to write and visit my child. The...
by RobertTownsend | Aug 19, 2014 | Germany, Publishing, Travel
Novelist seeking words in storied lands Our year abroad on a budget approaches an end. Our strategy was to live where it was inexpensive (Rovinj, Croatia) in order to afford better (Dresden, Germany), then giga-expensive (Dubai) (visiting a child). It has worked....
by RobertTownsend | Jun 8, 2014 | Germany, Travel
Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.’ Mary McCarthy, a New York writer and Trotskyite, speaking of Lillian Hellman, a New York writer and Stalinist, on the Dick Cavett show (January, 1980) Dresden, Germany I am in Dresden until late summer. We...
by RobertTownsend | May 24, 2014 | Deception, Germany, Travel
…and Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming I have been taking long walks in the Upper Swabian countryside this spring. The Alps like the Rockies advance or retreat as is their wont and per the air’s clarity. This is a rich and well watered land, tended...