Yes, we know it already feels like winter out there—what with snow on the way and all—but we just wanted to remind you that winter doesn’t really begin around here until our winter/spring catalog launches online this Thursday, December 8. That’s when you’ll be able to stock up on all our new classes and events (it’s cheaper and quicker when you do it online).

In the meantime, we’ve got a full week.

Elin McCoy (who will be stopping by this Wednesday, December 7 for our Wines of the World discussion/tasting) recently wrote a remarkably interesting biography about, of all things, a newsletter editor. Robert Parker of the The Wine Advocate is described by The Economist as someone whose reviews “can make or break a winemaker, and be the difference between profit and loss for those sad people who buy wine merely as an investment.” McCoy’s The Emperor of Wine turned out to be some of the most addictive oenophile reading we’ve come across in this post-Sideways world.

We’ve got some other high-profile guests at Wines of the World, too: Best Cellars CEO Joshua Wesson; W.R. Tish, former editor of Wine Enthusiast; Master Ki-Choon Lee of Korea and Saveur magazine’s Colman Andrews. And alongside them, the real stars—wines from Argentina, Australia, France, Israel, Italy, Korea, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland and the United States.

The 1930 film The Blue Angel popularized Marlene Dietrich in America and was one of the high points of Weimar Germany cinema.

Still popular today, it’s a little-known fact the movie was adapted from a novel: Heinrich Mann’s 1906 satire, Professor Unrat. And as these things turn out, the original book was an explicit classic steeped in sex and dirty humor—well worth seeking out in its English translation as Small Town Tyrant.

Peter Bogdanovich likes the movie, too. On Saturday, December 10, he’ll be introducing Makor’s screening of The Blue Angel.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, December 6, author Jonathan Rosen will be stopping by the Y along with a panel including Dara Horn, Erica Jong, Thane Rosenbaum and Lara Vapnyar to discuss On Being (and Not Being) a Jewish-American Writer.

Over in the New York Times, Rosen just reviewed Harold Bloom’s new book (Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine) and gave it a gushing thumbs-up:

Bloom taught a class called “Counter-Normative Currents in Contemporary Jewish Literature,” which included moderns like Freud, Kafka and Babel but began with “the Yahwist,” author of the oldest strand of the Hebrew Bible. Suddenly, being a Jewish writer wasn’t just for post-Enlightenment Johnny-come-latelies, but an ancient birthright.

And luckily for everyone, Bloom is also stopping by the Y next Monday to pay tribute to Leaves of Grass.