Ever since he rubbed elbows with author/adventurer George Plimpton as a young man, Dan Buettner has tended to think big. Over the years, he's ridden a bicycle from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to the Southern extreme South America, taken another bike trip around the African continent, and traced Darwin's route through the Galapagos and Marco Polo's journey over the Silk Road. Now Buettner's on another quest: Having identified "Blue Zones" around the world where people routinely live past the age of 100, he's set out to apply the age-defying secrets of those locales to the small town of Albert Lea, Minnesota. And he's got $1 million to do it. This week we recommend, "I Wanna Live Forever," by City Pages staff writer Erin Carlyle.

We've got the hippest, handsomest gossip columnist in the Big Apple. But why take our word for it? Here's what the New York Times said last Friday: "Michael Musto--who has chronicled the lives of drag queens, club kids, and an array of freaks and celebrities for the Village Voice for 25 years--still turns heads." That he does, and there's a good reason why. You won't find a wittier, more in-the-know columnist covering the New York social scene--or one with better fashion sense. Read the entire Times piece--complete with sartorial photos of our man Michael--here.