Zimmerwald

Cometbus #58

by Aaron Cometbus

Genres: Fiction

44 pages, Unknown Binding

Published January 1, 2017

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

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this was my third attempt at reading Aaron's fiction, and it will likely be my last. In contrast to the authenticity of his nonfiction, which feels natural, the artifice he employs in his fiction seems too obvious. Sometimes hyper-awareness of a work's fictional nature works well for me but not here.

[Jeff Buddle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to love it. I've been with Aaron so long, he's like a brother. I've been to his bookstore, we've talked. I've sold him books. I am an unabashed Crimpshrine fan. But this one leaves me on the outside. Something is happening here and I don't know what it is.

There's the 'great good place' thing, where our hero finds a place where he can feel comfortble, but nothing really adds up. What was he looking for? What has he found?

One of Aaron's tropes is the 'mystery woman.' And she eventually crops up here, with hints that it was she that our hero was fleeing from all along; But he can't escape. She finds him.

Aaron is indeed a big ol' softie. He likes people. He appreciates their simplicity and their madness. It all comes across. I couldn't write anything like this little book. I don't like people at all.

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

We can never truly hide, can we?

[Dougal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zimmerwald is one of the more fascinating and intoxicating books (zines?) I’ve read in the last few years, achieving in just 44 pages what most fail to do in a few hundred. I finished it in a few days, which is effectively not putting it down for my slow and easily distracted reading capabilities.

In short, Zimmerwald is a sarcastic, deeply self-aware, sometimes perverse account of a collection of evenings the author spent at a back-alley diner in San Francisco. Told through the often uncomfortably close perspective of his moment to moment thoughts and feelings as he attempts to merge himself, tumor-like, into an openly hostile environment, Aaron Cometbus is simultaneously accidental rodeo clown and safari guide for most of the book.

It’s hard to describe exactly why Zimmerwald is so enthralling to me. I’m tempted to throw out the classic “can’t look away from a car crash” line, but it’s not as if the scenes are so outlandishly awful that you find yourself running down the pages in disbelief. Moreso, Cometbus’ layered, twisting, sometimes agonizingly indulgent experience of the people he finds himself surrounded by and their near-caricature personalities and mannerisms evokes something akin to a cabinet of curiosities, or, maybe more appropriately, a little shop of horrors. Phoebe Waller-Bridges’ Fleabag comes to mind, with some passages of the book evoking the same sense of claustrophobia while also yearning for it to go just a little further.

In summation, what on the surface, or maybe in the eyes of another writer, would be an excruciatingly benal look into a world nobody wanted to see, becomes an Alice-In-Wonderland-esque journey, if Alice was a cynical punk-adjacent skater and the inhabitants of Wonderland were megalomaniacal geriatrics.

[Caroline Van · Rating 4 out of 5]

Omfg reading reviews now and just realized it was fiction. I claim autofiction. The parts about missing the scene or trying to hold onto or catch up to the scene are too similar to things he says in his interviewing.

I thought it was a real account of a place for him. It felt comfortable in that i know places like this that feel challenging because they are so different than the other spaces--that also make you think about aging and what you want your days to look like when you get there.

I loved the banter and it made me want to do more your mama jokes.

"The urge to turn your back on the world was powerful, either alone or with a partner. I felt it, too. But whether the regulars had resisted that pull, missed the connection, or simply failed to make up their minds and decide what to do with their lives, I couldn't tell.
...
The truth, of course, was that it would be up to me to take care of Caesar and the regulars, not the other way around. But first I'd have to choose my own path, or lose the chance if I didn't quit stalling soon."

As a piece of fiction, he could have totally leaned into more worldbuilding. On a line level was funny and witty--the noahs arc of characters; the "No one asked me how I felt, which was nice, because it took me years to figure out."

[David Macpherson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I look forward to the new issue of Cometbus every year. I like how he imakes each issue its own short book. This one is shorter than the last few. It just didn't work. I am not done with Cometbus, but this one is not a winner. A young punk hangs out at a run down diner with mean spirited regulars. That's about it. There is some nice stuff about identification of self in a group, but at the end it turns on a surrealistic/allegorical that does not work one bit. Oh well. Can't wait to see what shows up next year.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Overdue to read this -- it was a perfect Saturday afternoon jumping back into a story about Aaron and his romanticism of a coffee shop of disgruntled regulars that he inserts himself in the middle of and makes a place for himself whilst taking a step away from the punks down the street. Awesome, as always. RTWWC

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Got a lot of the same pleasure here as I do from Cometbus’s non-fiction - and in fact, you could have easily told me this was non-fiction most of the way through. The same down-and-out romanticism I always go for, with a somewhat surprising slow shift into a dreamlike reality that I think he pulls off.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Casual imaginary ethnographic sketches. In which Aaron steps out of punk culture of his youth and goes native amongst the geriatric. With the occasional surrealistic psychoanalytical projection. A fun experiment with mediocre results.

[Donald · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know if Cometbus is legible to anyone who didn't spend at least part of her youth at punk shows, but if you did, he's the best.

[Brendan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one is much shorter than the past few Cometbus issues, and the story really doesn’t do much for me, but it is always a pure joy to read Aaron’s writing.

[Tim · Rating 1 out of 5]

Aaron I love your work but this one is unintelligible and unfun.

[Nicole Adrienne · Rating 5 out of 5]

You're always the last one to know.

[EC · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic. Matzah Balls in Your Mouth Soup. Best writer ever. Next to Al Burian.