A stylistically varied collection of essays, poems, scripts and lectures by artist and educator Gary Kibbins.

In the 1960s, English teachers launched a jihad against Philip Morris Co. for their slogan, “Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should,” because standard grammar called for “as,” despite the fact that “like” had been making inroads into usage for the previous two decades. There are two kinds of grammarians, those who describe and those who prescribe. In the academic world, the prescribers are usually viewed as the conservative old guard. The descriptarians are usually seen as the activists who believe the task of grammarians is to map or chart how speakers use their language and note its changes over time. Like won.Gary Kibbins’ work aligns best with the progressive grammarians, but it swerves easily into the practice of their counterparts: Kibbins’ articulations are inevitably undecidable, unable to choose between describing the way things are or the way they should be, and disrupting the boundary between these two modalities. What he adds to the science of grammar is the critical self-awareness of the observer, never assuming that a privileged position necessarily leads to critical superiority.— from the Afterword by Matias Viegener

This collection of texts is an important cultural event. The acumen, political and otherwise, of the critical essays, the virtuosity of the video scripts, and above all the dialogue between the two modes reveal Gary Kibbins to be an original and exciting aesthetic intelligence. — David E. James, author, The Most Typical Avant-Garde: History and Geography of Minor Cinemas in Los Angeles

Gary Kibbins is an artist, writer and educator, currently teaching in the Department of Film Studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. His works have been widely shown nationally and internationally.

Andrew J. Paterson is an interdisciplinary artist working with performance, video and film, musical composition, and both critical and fiction writing. His performances and videotapes have been presented and exhibited locally, nationally, and internationally. Paterson has been a board member of many Canadian organizations and has curated various media art programs. He is the coordinator of The 8 Fest, a festival for small-gauge film.

Contents

4 poems, 11 scripts, 5 essays, 2 lectures, 1 interview, and 1 afterword

Andrew J. Paterson

52 Gods

Alien Seaman

April 1967

Ass Bowl Comedy: Nonsense and Experimental Film

Be Nice or Die: Dinosaur and the Evolutionary Imperative

Bear Assumptions: Notes on Experimentalism

Brain Worm

Carl Andre’s Overalls

Flaming Creatures

Grammar Lesson

If Horses Had Gods

Limbic Moments

Mead Lake

P & Not-P

Reflections on Art and Politics at Decade’s End

Steve Reinke Interviewing Kibbins

Short History of Water

Speculative Grammar

Matias Viegener