In Brief: Snowpocalypse 2010 Edition

Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to good things in Blogville and Beyond.

• The official measurement is still being worked out, but with this historic snowfall at around 22 inches by Ionarts Central and over 30 inches in other places out in the suburbs, at the very least that Washington has had two of its Top 10 Snowfalls Ever in one winter this year! [DCist]


• Snowstorms a lot smaller than this one tend to cause Washingtonians to panic and make absurd runs on the corner store. As the Dupont Circle Whole Foods closed early on Friday night, one local resident reportedly screamed, "Let me in, let me in. I don't have any coffee at home!" I don't know why people are laughing about this: it sounds like the worst possible crisis one could ever face. *shudder* [Borderstan]


• The always resourceful Alex Ross alerts us to the materials related to Bartók's study of folk music recently put online by the Institute for Musicology at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Many hours subsequently devoted to going through it all. [Unquiet Thoughts]


• "Heroic Computer Dies To Save World From Master's Thesis" [The Onion]


• Martin Scorsese has chosen a fascinating list of compositions for the soundtrack of his new movie, Shutter Island. [Paramount]


• What was it like to be a plate in the armor that protected J. D. Salinger's reclusive existence? Joanna Smith Rakoff tells all. [Slate]


• How J. D. Salinger's neighbors in Cornish, N.H., helped shield him from unwanted attention. [New York Times]


• Lillian Ross remembers Salinger, including how he spoke to her about his neighbors and others. [The New Yorker]


• Some photographs taken by Lillian Ross, of Salinger playing with her son Erik. [The New Yorker]


• Why did humans evolve the ability to play and love music? [The Economist]


• We enjoy reading the gossipy missives of Milan's leading opera blogger as much as anyone else. Rupert Christiansen does hit the nail on the head, however, by noting that her new column for fashion mag W's Editors' Blog (how long can she possibly remain anonymous at this rate?) draws attention to a "regrettable" nexus between fashion and classical music. On one hand, it may make classical music sexier and therefore of greater appeal to a certain group of potential listeners who care about such things; on the other, it does so by appealing to their shallowest instincts. "We are meant to go to a concert to listen rather than look," writes Christiansen, "and ideally how musicians are clothed should have no bearing on the sound they make." Incredibly, the critic admits in print that he himself is swayed by the way musicians dress. [The Telegraph]


• More incredibly, this discussion is occurring at around the same time that other gurus keep repeating that classical music needs to get off its elitist pedestal and stop wearing tuxedos that apparently make normal people feel uncomfortable. So, musicians should put their tuxedos away and spend all their money on designer labels? [Inside the Classics]