Just two days ago I decided to read one of Feynman's papers (the one on the Hellman-Feynman theorem). His style is amazingly readable and almost conversational, even in dense scientific work, and yet it's still sufficiently precise and formal to seem perfectly in place in a journal. I've been trying ever since to figure out how he does it.

Of philosophers, David Z. Albert and Ted Sider have written popular books that explain difficult problems in a pretty clear and funny way.

Malcom Gladwell and Stephen Pinker are two writers to mold my mind recently.

Chomsky and Feynman for me... except with Chomsky it isn't exactly levity.

Definitely.

Hofstadter, Jack Kornfeld, VS Ramachandran, Alan Watts (at times) (not to start political debate, but Barack Obama)

And for music (what the hell) Phillip Glass, Squarepusher, Tool, Bach, almost any sort of gamelan music, or music with uneven or additive rhythmic structures.