Mohammed Baqir Hassan 'Alwan - 6 May (chosen) 1930 - 6 May 2024

These "Baq" pages were made for Dunya 'Alwan on 23 September 2024 in hopes they may add to shared memories. Dunya's and my parents are the same age, and when my mother died, I know this tradition greatly enriched all of our experiences, and hope this might, in small part, do the same.

I thought I'd share some of my memories here, to capture a small piece of a wonderful period filled with laughter, exploration, mutual support, love, and community. 

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Somerville, MA 1986-88

I remember warmth, laughter, and Baq always welcoming people into his home whether friends, colleagues, students, family, or someone he'd just met.

The smell of kufta kabobs; the sound of the pressure cooker with rice cooking on the stove, and Baq's anticipation of a successful "rice essence" or crispy bottom; toasting bagels in the bottom broiler tray and setting out enough toppings and condiments to fill the table for breakfast gatherings.

Laughing every time Baq would say in a comedic yell, "That's right, go ahead, break it! If it were yours, you'd take care of it!" often used when anyone--including himself--stumbled over something, or almost dropped or knocked something over.

Discussions that often went until sunrise.

Baq's Book(store), mainly a curated repository for his extensive collection. Getting delightfully and deliberately lost in the stacks when time permitted.

Day trips on hunting expeditions in search of rare books and Stickley finds.

Backgammon (hundreds of matches - I'd like to at least pretend I won a decent handful of those...).

Dominoes (Baq and Rami on one team; Dunya and me on the other. Our win count might have been 0.)

Baq's absolute joy in entertaining.

Listening to Baq talk about his children, for whom he had such deep pride and affection.

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Baq would tell this story about a prank he and a colleague pulled off when he was working at Harvard. They decided to conduct an informal experiment to determine whether a made-up word would be adopted and put into use by students and/or faculty as a legitimate word.

So, they decided the made-up word "shimpracorious" would do nicely, and started to use it in conversation within earshot of colleagues and students. It didn't take long before they began to hear the word being used in conversations around campus, so experiment success was had, as well as many laughs over the outcome.  (There was a deeper meaning to this experiment, but I suspect you've already figured that out.)