As a lad of advancing age, I was distressed to see Jessica Lange, one of the crushes of my youth, on the cover of More. Doesn't every celeb who claims that slot have to be at least, like, 52? And what of my other daydream mainstays, like Debbie Harry and Catherine Bach and Bernadette Peters (only in "The Jerk")? How old are they now? Fifty-nine? Sixty-seven? We're all going to die soon.

I don't think there's a magazine on the planet as meticulously organized and certain in its mission as Black Enterprise. For evidence, merely turn to the table of contents pages in its July issue. Each item is appended with a short subject header, a three- or four-word headline, and a concise blurb, followed by the author's name. Not that anybody should read too much into the precision and layout of a contents page, but clearly this ain't a publication that dawdles. That quick first impression is confirmed by the rest of the issue, which is equal parts Forbes and Oprah-ish …

I can only imagine the freebies handed out to the editors and contributors of Luxury Spa Finder magazine. The question remains, though, as to whether taking the freebies creates an objective magazine, which relaunched last year as a niche luxury glossy going up against high-end travel and beauty books. The spring-summer issue features the latest news about the ultimate in self-indulgence and back-to-the-land wellness. Discoveries are a aplenty in the pages. For instance, therapists at the Golden Door Spa in Boulder, Colo. exfoliate their patrons with Hopi blue corn meal that contains ionized mineral turquoise. During the process, those …

Unlike most of the 37,500 other participants, my journey through last year's New York City Marathon included a stretch of "quiet time" with the roadside paramedics. After a few minutes of decidedly non-erotic poking and probing, I was able to break free of their grasp, smuggling a dazed German dude out of the first-aid tent so that we could hobble the final 1.5 miles and regain a shred of the dignity we'd left spattered all over Central Park. Masochistic streak proudly intact, I'm hoping to revisit the experience this year.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of too many publications with less editorial credibility than Premiere. For the last few years, its main features have read as if they were dictated by negativity-nixing publicists. Similarly, its reviews generally vary between three stars and four, rendering them little more than a wordier version of the euphoric one-liners spewed in every direction by Wireless Magazine's Earl Dittman ("'Boat Trip' is cruising... towards an Oscar!!!").

Inspired House looks sleek. It reads as if somebody with working knowledge of "nouns" and "verbs" had a hand in editing it, as opposed to many of its peers. Its cover boasts some kind of nü-elegant outdoor kitchen/patio dealie where I'd be happy to while away the lazy summer nights - sort of like Huck and Tom, but with nearby indoor plumbing. So why is it that the August issue of the publication leaves me feeling somewhat less than inspired? I blame it on category overload. Having been bombarded with 6,372 different shelter magazines since the current incarnation of Magazine …

I bought the July issue of Muscle & Fitness hoping against hope that it would contain some kind of post-season wrap-up of cover boy Michael Chiklis' "The Shield," which is only the best show on television. Seriously - has any other show that has generated such critical and popular acclaim ever flown so far beneath the mainstream radar? These are the questions that haunt my every waking hour.

I chose Nylon for today's column simply because it looked like the loneliest, saddest magazine on the rack at Barnes & Noble. The stack of available copies towered over those of surrounding publications, rendering Nylon the glossily published equivalent of Little Orphan Annie. I'm nothing if not humane. Turns out that there's a pretty good reason for this: The June/July music issue of Nylon tries so hard to link the worlds of high tunes and low style that it's basically unreadable. By focusing its coverage on fetching newbies like Be Your Own Pet, the Like, and the Tints, the mag …

As a New York City resident so fussy and urbane that the thought of a meal without scones makes me quake in my velvet slippers, I'm supposed to hate magazines like Truckin'. And guess what? I do, with every fiber of my being.

Whenever I spend one of my regular summer weekends in rural Pennsylvania, I'm always sure to bring along a copy of The New Yorker. Not only does it help fill nearly every moment of downtime, but it also gives me serious street cred among my fellow red-state denizens. By waving around a copy of the mag, I can almost guarantee a weekend's worth of wayward glances at the beer repository and an "accidental" 15 percent overcharge when I refill the propane tank.