Thoughts Words Action reviews 'Bag of Tricks'
- david1170
- Apr 2
- 5 min read
"The book reads like a fever dream, an equally nostalgic love letter and recollection of a subculture that burned brightly and dangerously on the fringes of society... Bag of Tricks shines in its authenticity. This book is reckless, thrilling, and unforgettable. Just like punk itself."
Mixed Stories of Life as a San Francisco Punk in the early 80’s
BOOK ONE OF A PUNK TRILOGY
Few books capture a time and place with the raw passion and honesty of Ruby Dee Philippa’s Bag of Tricks. A collection of interconnected vignettes chronicling the San Francisco punk scene of the early 1980s, the book reads like a fever dream, an equally nostalgic love letter and recollection of a subculture that burned brightly and dangerously on the fringes of society. Philippa, a musician and storyteller whose own past intersects with the characters she brings to life, crafts a work that is both personal and compelling. The stories pulse with immediacy, their jagged edges mirroring the discordant riffs and frenetic energy of the punk movement itself. As readers, we don’t just observe, we are thrust into the crowded clubs, the squalid squats, and the reckless abandon of youth in rebellion. Bag of Tricks shines in its authenticity. Philippa lived this world, and it shows. The book introduces us to The Shits, a fictional yet all-too-real punk band, their devoted groupies The Clits, and a revolving cast of misfits who navigate a world fuelled by music, excess, and disillusionment. The stories, while independent, bleed into one another, creating a fragmented yet uniformed mosaic of a time when living fast often meant dying young. Philippa does not sanitize or soften the harsh realities of the scene. We follow her characters as they dumpster dive for meals, scrounge for drugs, and drift through a city that both embraces and rejects them. There are moments of euphoria, a particularly raucous show, the fellowship of outsiders finding solace in one another, but also stark reminders of the toll this lifestyle exacts. Yet, there is no judgment here, only an unflinching gaze at what was.
Philippa’s prose is spare, punchy, and provocative. Each sentence lands with the precision of a power chord, cutting through the noise to expose the raw nerve beneath. The book’s rhythm is unpredictable, some passages rush forward in a torrent of sensation, while others pause, staying on a detail that might otherwise be overlooked. Yet beneath the stripped-down style, there is a poetic sensibility at work. Philippa knows how to make a sentence sing, and even in the bleakest moments, her language hums with a kind of rebellious beauty. The dialogue crackles with authenticity, capturing the slang, sarcasm, and nihilistic wit of the era. Even the way characters speak to one another reflects the sense of community and conflict that defined punk culture, harsh words masking deeper bonds, insults that doubled as endearments. Many of the stories are based on real events, yet Philippa acknowledges that memory is a slippery thing. Some details are altered, and some moments are exaggerated or rearranged. This interplay between fact and fiction adds another layer to the book’s allure. What is real? Does it matter? In a world where perception is shaped by experience, the emotional truth remains, regardless of the specifics. The decision to blur the lines between what happened and what could have happened speaks to a more prominent theme in punk culture, the idea that reality itself is subjective, that history is written by those who survive to tell it. Philippa navigates this ambiguity without losing credibility as a writer. Her stories feel lived-in, filled with sensory details that bring the era to life, the scent of sweat and beer in a packed club, the sting of cold pavement on a sleepless night, the adrenaline rush of dodging cops or fighting for space in a mosh pit.
San Francisco, with its gritty beauty and endless contradictions, looms large in Bag of Tricks. The city is more than just a backdrop, it’s a living, breathing entity, shaping the characters as much as they shape their own destinies. Philippa paints a portrait of a San Francisco that no longer exists, a city where artists, rebels, and outcasts carved out a place for themselves in the margins. Through her eyes, we see the darkened alleyways, the neon glow of dive bars, the abandoned buildings that became temporary homes. We feel the pulse of the scene, the sense of danger and possibility that defined life on the fringes. Her depiction of place is reminiscent of the best literary chroniclers of urban life, think Joan Didion’s California, Jack Kerouac’s road-weary America, or Patti Smith’s New York. But Philippa’s San Francisco is uniquely her own, a city seen through the eyes of someone who loved it, survived it, and lived to tell the tale. Bag of Tricks is a document of a subculture that refused to be ignored. Philippa has given readers a glimpse into a world that is both distant and near, a time when music was a lifeline and rebellion was a way of life. For those who lived through it, the book will feel like an old mixtape, each story a track that brings the past rushing back. For those who didn’t, it offers an unvarnished look at a movement that still reverberates in underground clubs and DIY venues today. Beyond its historical and cultural significance, Bag of Tricks resonates on a deeply human level. At its core, this is a book about youth, about the search for belonging, about the choices we make and the ones made for us. It’s about what it means to be an outsider, to push against the boundaries of what society expects, and to carve out an identity in a world that often seeks to erase difference. Philippa never romanticizes the past, nor does she wallow in nostalgia. Instead, she offers a clear-eyed view of what it means to be young, reckless, and full of fire. The result is an exhilarating and heart-breaking book, a reminder of the cost of freedom and the beauty found in chaos.
With Bag of Tricks, Ruby Dee Philippa cements herself as not only a chronicler of punk history but a literary force in her own right. This book will likely become essential reading for those interested in punk’s past, joining the ranks of seminal works like Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain’s Please Kill Me or Viv Albertine’s Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. But beyond that, it stands as a powerful piece of storytelling in its own right, a book that surpasses genre and time period to speak to anyone who has ever felt the need to escape, to reinvent, to rage against the machine. This book is reckless, thrilling, and unforgettable. Just like punk itself.
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