I was reading about the anniversary of Shi`r magazine. It was an interesting literary event in contemporary Arab life, although it has internalized many of the Orientalist tendencies of the two founders/leaders: Yusuf Al-Khal (disciple of Charles Malik), and Adonis, who would absorb wholesale the Orientalist teachings of St. Joseph University (where my mother went to school). It reminded me of an episode that my uncle, Naji AbuKhalil, told me. Sometimes in the 1960s, when my uncle and Ghassan Kanafani were working at Al-Hurriyyah magazine--the publication of the Movement of the Arab Nationalists (later became the mouthpiece of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine). They did not like Shi`r magazine, and from their perspective, it was a reactionary political experience. So Kanafani and my uncle composed a poem in the style that Shi`r liked, and sent it under a fictitious name. It was published with praise. I am planning to trace that poem: I need to get the dates from my uncle. Last time I saw my uncle who now lives in Paris, I strongly urged him to write his memoirs. He refuses. He had a very interesting background. He was in the Movement of Arab Nationalists, and knew very well many of the key personalities: George Habash, Wadi` Haddad, Ghassan Kanafani, Nayif Hawatimah, Muhsin Ibrahim, Ahmad Al-Khatib, Hani Al-Hindi, etc. But he was closest to Hawatimah: on that, and on the two-state solution, we always disagreed. What is interesting about Wadi` Haddad: who became associated in the 1970s with "international terrorism" is that he was--according to those who knew him well--much different in person from his image as the mastermind of "spectacular operations" and the boss of Carlos (the Jackal). My late aunt remembered him (during their late night meetings in the AbuKhalil's house in Tyre in the 1960s) as the quiet one. When the group would discuss theories and ideologies, he would leave out of boredom, and join the women of the house.