I had planned on posting a video from a magic performance I presented at the Left Forum yesterday, but I’m having technical difficulty, so until I’m able to post the video I’d like to share with you something said at the plenary session by one of the participants, the popular musician and revolutionary, Immortal Technique.

His remark was in the context of addressing  the possibility of forming a truly viable leftist party in the United States, given that so many recent efforts seemed to have been failures with little impact.

His reply was this: “The reason that I’ve achieved the position that I have is because I have failed. Failed over and over. More importantly, I’ve failed many more times in my art than most people have even tried to take a chance. There has to be space for failure.”

There’s almost no way for an artist to be good without first being bad. Artists need the space and permission (from themselves!) to be bad. Each painful lousy performance or draft is one step closer to getting it where it wants to be.

As Samuel Beckett said, “Try again, Fail again. Fail Better.”