Take Note

It's Friday morning, and I've just had a large coffee and a bagel/egg/sausage/cheese breakfast sandwich, so of course I have some things to tell you:

• The Inside Flap, the terrific blog of the venerable Milwaukee indie Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops, has started this series of video shelf talkers. I love this idea, as it gives you a feel for what it's like to be in their store, meeting their staff. More indie bookstores should be doing more stuff like this (which basically means I should be doing more stuff like that).

• Michael Ruhlman posts today about Eric Ripert's new book On the Line. He also recommends Ripert's website aveceric. Funny thing is, we've got an event Monday afternoon: Lunch with Chef Eric Ripert (You've got about half an hour to sign up if you want to go).
  

• While further exploring tumblr, I came upon 52Books: A year long reading project. A simple concept, beautifully executed. Too bad I'm finding it at the tail end of the year.
  

• This has absolutely nothing to do with books (at least, not that I can tell) but it does have to do with greatness, and as such, I think everyone should read Unremitting Failure as soon as they have the time. On Sammy Hagar:

  People Talk a Lot About the Greatness of Sammy Hagar
  
  But seriously, of what does this much-vaunted greatness consist?
  
  One thing: Sammy can't drive 55.
  
  To which we say, so what? The speed limit has been upped to 65 mph in most places anyway. In fact, 32 states have raised speed limits to 70 mph or higher on some portion of their roadway systems. As a result, Mr. Hagar is no longer obligated to do that which he simply cannot do, mainly abide by a speed limit which everybody ignored right along with him in the first place.

• There goes the rest of the day: 50 years of Pelican paperback covers at Things Magazine. (Via the invaluable The Morning News.)