Adam Block Memorial 1951-2008: from Greil Marcus

Adam Parker Block Memorial----1951-2008

Adam Parker Block----1951-2008

Adam Parker Block, 56, died Sunday morning January 27th at his home in San Francisco after a protracted pulmonary illness. A fifth generation Seattleite, he was born at Swedish Hospital February 7, 1951. He attended high school at Lakeside and Putney Schools and college at Reed, California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts), graduating from Harvard.

Adam was a writer, avid reader and keen social observer and critic whose deep curiosity and insights crossed many disciplines. He lived in San Francisco for the past 30 years. In the 80’s Adam was popular music critic for The Advocate where he wrote a regular column, "Block on Rock". His writing also appeared in numerous publications including Mother Jones, the San Francisco Examiner magazine Image, the Bay Area Reporter, the New Musical Express and Creem. During that time, Adam interviewed virtually every pop star from Elton John to Bono.

Adam was a challenging and unforgettable friend, in turns fiercely loyal and loving and breathtakingly selfish, combative and self absorbed. His curiosity, knowledge, humor and spirit were contagious. Adam believed punctuality, deadlines and being awake during daylight hours were vastly overrated. He loved to outrage and often bragged that being gay, Jewish and half Texan (on his mother’s side)---he had something to offend most everyone. Adam loved literature, art, music, film, news, politics, humor, ideas, food, drink and travel---but most of all, smart lively conversation and animated debate.

Adam is survived by nine siblings; Jonathan, Daniel, Kenan, Susanna, Mary Judith, Tamara, Christina, Melinda, Newton and his step mother, Mary Lou Block as well as 13 nieces and nephews. Adam’s father Robert Jackson Block and mother Dorothy Wolens Block preceded him in death.

With Adam’s death, the lives of those who knew him will be calmer and quieter but far less interesting.

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Thursday, January 31, 2008

from Greil Marcus

I was thinking today about Adam's writing and when he stopped. It's been a long time since Adam wrote as a mainstream journalist, for Mother Jones, the San Francisco Examiner magazine Image, and more.

His work was distinctive. There was a sense of personal engagement--the feeling that the subject at hand mattered to him--but that never got in the way of the reader; the writing was not personal. It was rigorous, carefully reported, and while Adam was able to get people like Bono to open up as others could not, that wasn't trumpeted; what you read came across as ordinary speech.

If anything, Adam could fit stories about which he was passionate, with dynamic and conflicted feelings, too closely into a conventional journalistic format. He lacked the self-confidence, as a writer, to test editorial expectations, to break rules. The expansiveness, insistence, demanding energy of Adam talking wasn't in his writing as much as it should have been. He was a professional, hiding his deep friendships with people he wrote about, their respect for him, his for them.

I was sorry for years that he stopped writing. I regret it again now.

All best,

Greil Marcus