The Loneliness of the Electric Menorah

Cometbus #51

by Aaron Cometbus

Aaron has delved into East Bay history to produce this complex set of interweaving stories. He has done a ton of work on this issue, combining information gleaned from over 40 individuals. The stories are as obscure (to most people) as they are engrossing, and a whole secret history of Berkeley's Telegraph Ave. is revealed. Entrepreneurial booksellers and their long-standing feud, street vendors, and the Symbionese Liberation Army all make appearances. There's also back-story on Cody's Books, Shakespeare and Co., and Black Oak Books. And of course Aaron still manages to personalize it, with a pervasive sense of sentimentality and charm. Although the zine's central focus is on Telegraph, the underlying story is of the complicated relationship we often have with place.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Aaron Elliott, better known as Aaron Cometbus, is a drummer, lyricist, self-described "punk anthropologist" and author of Cometbus, a seminal punk rock zine.

Reviews

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learned a lot about my new home, and it was all pretty damn interesting, some of it priceless.

#54 is still my favorite though!

[Rebecca Gross · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really fun read. Doesn't glorify the yuppie, hippie small business owners on Telegraph Ave, who were sometimes anti-student-movement. But it also articulates the importance of these indie bookstores to a marketplace of leftist ideas.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

i picked this up at Pegasus on Shattuck about ten years ago, i bought a few copies after reading it and passed them to friends that wanted to know about bookselling in Berkeley. Cometbus is a terrific writer (this isn't the only issue i've bought multiple issues of).
Sunday i was at Pegasus Rockridge and saw this has been released as a book!

[Matte Resist · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently went on a long road trip. I stopped at City Lights Books because I've been wanting to check that store out since I was a kid obsessed with beat literature. I'm not really all that interested in beat literature anymore, but it was walking distance from where we were staying in San Francisco, so I couldn't pass it up. In the beat literature section was a shelf of zines and that's what REALLY caught my eye. I left with 4 new zines. Well, what I thought were 4 new zines. Turns out I already had this one. I started thinking, "Man! Aaron really loves writing about book sellers." Then realized I'd already read this issue.

Unfortunately I didn't start reading it before we got to Berkeley, because after reading Cometbus & listening to a ton of Berkeley/bay area punk over the years, I thought it would be cool to check out some of places that I had heard & read so much about. The only place I could think of was Gilman though, and that was closed. I remembered something about Telegraph, but I couldn't remember Amoeba Records, any of the book stores, or anything else. At the last minute I remembered about People's Park, but by that point we'd decided to take a nap and were already running late to meet up with some friends, so we skipped it. By the sounds of this zine, the glory days are gone anyway. I didn't have any Berkeley glory days to relive, so it wasn't about that. It wasn't trying to find some sort of punk Mecca. I just thought it would be interesting to see places that had played such a prominent roll in music and zines I enjoyed while I was so close. Instead we hung out with some friends around a fire, and had a bartender have a weird freakout when we mentioned that he'd billed us for things we didn't actually order.

As for this zine... it's Cometbus, so of course it's good. It's a very detailed and well researched account of the bookstores (mostly on Telegraph) in Berkeley. There's feuds and riots and the Symbionese Liberation Army makes a brief appearance, which was especially interesting to me because when Sara Jane Olson/Kathleen Ann Soliah was found in Minnesota, the press played it like she'd settled down into a quiet suburban life. This zine was the first place I heard that she'd continued being politically active and worked at radical bookstores in Minneapolis. I'm not sure if I never finished reading this zine the first time, or if that bit of information just didn't pop out to me the first time. Haven't found anything by Cometbus that wasn't worth reading and this is no exception.

[Lucy · Rating 3 out of 5]

So interesting to learn the history of a street and bookstore I know so well now as a Gen Z kid. I have fond memories of the tail-end of many of the stores mentioned — Cody’s, Blondie’s and even the Juice Bar — along with the remaining ones, and had absolutely no idea about their interconnectedness. Aaron’s writing, in my opinion, ranges from scathingly opinionated to coolly objective — a reporter who’s seen a lot on the inside.

Tangentially, Doris gave me a free Moe’s bag when I was twelve, and my dad illustrated the Cometbus #19 cover. All this to say, this was the first one I’ve read, but I’m sure I’ll read more.

[Thibault · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aaron Cometbus raconte « l'histoire sociale de [Telegraph avenue à Berkeley, Californie, sa ville natale] en prenant comme prétexte l'histoire d'une querelle entre deux [libraires] déraisonnables. »

C'est particulier comme histoire. On pourrait croire que ce n'est pas intéressant et qu'il ne parle finalement pas tant que ça de ces 2 libraires acariâtres, et en fait on se prend au jeu. les chapitres sont courts, se lisent facilement. Il y a bcp de personnages mais l'écriture de Cometbus rend tout cela compréhensible, intéressant et drôle.

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Berkeley native returns home to document the history of the bookstores on the main street in town. His personal resentments from intergenerational conflict between hippies and punks sometimes surfaces in the text, but for the most part he reports like it's his job. Reading this self-published zine was an opportunity to reflect on how good journalism can be. This was my first Cometbus zine. My partner has all of them so I think it won't be my last.

[Cari Lily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though I haven't had the chance to make it out to the West Coast, it was still delightful to learn of the history of the different areas, the people, the bookstores, and the community.
Aaron Cometbus knows how to tell an engaging story that will make you erupt in a fit of giggles over how goofy and comical some of the people are.

If you love bookstores, read this book!

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent as always, he manages to make this an approachable, human-level story of a few booksellers on a single street while effortlessly linking it to the geographic/historic context and placing everything in a continuum of alternative culture - of which Cometbus itself is a part, of course. At this point I think I’ll just read anything he writes about just about any topic.

[Ronn · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 1/2 stars maybe. I bought this because of the quirkiness of the title. This is a sort-of history of the rise and development of the independent bookshop scene in Berkeley California. There are side trips into the worlds of used records, poster printing, and of course radical politics. It would be somewhat more interesting if you were part of the scene.

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sprawling and well-researched history, but I notice I've been finding Aaron's writing kind of hokey--a lot more clichés than I remember there being. Did it change, or did I?

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A love letter to a street in Berkeley and the booksellers who populated it. Well researched and fantastically written.

[David Macpherson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really interesting and well written book. I read it during jury duty. Got me through the waiting. It is the history of booksellers on telegraph ave in berkley. It doesn't sound promising, but Cometbus does a great job highlighting the characters (and characters) who ran these stores. I got a sense of place and person.

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

OMG so excited this was in here as I was lamenting that I didn't think zines were listed in goodreads (no isbn) but I found this in the Berkeley section (where else?!) of the Berkeley Central Library.. love this as it's a great backstory to the fascinating history of Berkeley's independent bookstores & the people behind each place..

[Simangele Kekana · Rating 4 out of 5]

fantastic