I haven’t been to Mishkenot Shaananim since I gave a talk there maybe 5 years ago about Assia Guttman.  But yesterday and today there was a conference on Amichai that was pretty smashing.  

First of all, there were enormous audiences.  Amichai of course deserves enormous audiences, and I found thousands of people who miss him as much as I do.  Today was a day of more academic papers and for some reason I found myself giving a paper (in my inimitable sloppy and confused way).

I just couldn’t concentrate.  I was so impressed with the facilities as well as Amichai’s poetry on my screen I spent too much time on the first part of my talk and didn’t have time for the second part.  

Why oh why can’t Tel Aviv drum up a literary audience?  Why oh why isn’t there a proper home for literary endeavors here?  Yes, there is Writers House on Kaplan Street, but we don’t have the funding for organizational staff.  We don’t even have the money right now to paint.  No private funding, no sponsors, no donors.  Maybe I’m missing something.  But I’ve been running the Israel Association of Writers in English for a few years – just because there’s no one else who’ll take it over and I’ve never met a donor in Tel Aviv. 

But never mind.  Tel Aviv operates on its own, and maybe art should be independent.  Poor and independent.