Educate and excite, inform and infuriate.

Vancouver-based technical artist James Provost possesses a smooth, accurate style that renders complex technology visually straightforward and, thus, comprehensible. What attracted me to his work was this gorgeous image of a deadly taser, but what kept me there was this vision of the BigDog robotic pack mule, above, done for Boston Dynamics. Scanning his portfolio’s dramatic cutaways reveals a gift for variety that marks Provost’s as a talent to watch.

[via behance.net]

He’s called “GreatWhite Clown,” by furfree, one of 48 entries from Worth1000.com’s recent “Animal Clowns” Photoshop competition. Plus, if you think that’s amazing, you should see this guy and 11 of his friends squeeze into a tiny car.

Dos Equis (Spanish for “two X’s”) wins again with their wildly tongue-in-cheek advertising. In the brewer’s latest campaign, their spokesman is “the most interesting man in the world”: A nameless, bearded, ultra-virile, ultra-Latin quasi-composite, above, who counsels us to “Stay thirsty, my friends,” as he proffers the brew. Though the copy for this spot, like all of them, is spot-on absurd (“He’s a lover, not a fighter…but he’s also a fighter, so don’t get any ideas”), my favorite piece may be Mr. Dos Equis’—can we call him that?—take on rollerblading.

Saw Star Trek, above, last night. Twice. Needless to say, it completely and totally rocks. Don’t wait for the DVD: This is a theater must-see.

One detail, though: The IMAX format is growing in popularity, but not all the IMAX theaters are those massive five-story ones, like at the Air & Space Museum, in Washington D.C., or at Lincoln Center, here, in NYC.

For example, the one where I saw the movie, at AMC 25 on 42nd St, charges $17.50 for a single, precious IMAX ticket, but the screen is basically the same size as pretty much any of the 25’s big screens. The film was digitally-projected, and the sound was enormous, but if you’re looking for that monster IMAX screen, go elsewhere.

But Star Trek, man: I think the coolest aspect of it, and the reason that the movie, in 10 days, has grossed nearly $150 million domestic—besides those $17.50 tickets—is that producer/director J.J. Abrams truly found the correct way to reboot the series. He brings it up to date, but in a way that draws in people who don’t care about Trek, as well as those who care about nothing else.

This being the movie biz, Abrams’ job was to, especially, cater to the former, which he does courtesy of a good-looking, enthusiastic cast, especially Chris Pine, as Capt. James T. Kirk, Zachary Quinto (Heroes) as Mr. Spock, Zöe Saldana as Lt. Uhura, and Eric Bana as the villainous Nero..

Meanwhile, for those of us who care passionately about such issues as, for example, what a starship sounds like when it goes to warp, the movie is nothing if not a revelation. In-jokes abound, and even in serious moments, of which there are many, the director nods to people who, say, know why, on a critical mission, Kirk and Sulu (John Cho) don’t get the red flightsuit.

Without question, Star Trek is going to be the movie to beat this summer. In fact, when the flick is over, the first thing one asks themself is, “When’s the next one?”

Here’s another question: I can think of at least one other much-beloved  sci-fi series whose name starts with the word Star, and which desperately needs a remix.

J.J. Abrams: You available?

Did white women have a rabid response to Asher Roth’s recent April Fool Day’s “remake”, right, of D’Angelo’s 2000 “Untitled (How Does It Feel?)”, left?

You know: The kind you’ve seen erupt over and over in Black females since D near-dangled his dingle on MTV. Even more, what’s weirder: That the pallid Roth would choose to mock himself this way, or that D’Angelo has taken nearly a decade to follow up his last album, Voodoo?

[via racialicious]

The real question, though, is when Jump Smokers‘ “My Flow So Tight (Anti-Breezy),” released last month, comes on in the clubs, with its harsh verses (“There’s a curse to this last name ‘Brown'”) and brutal hook (“Chris Brown should get his ASS KICKED!”), does he dance to it?

That, and who’s going to be the first VJ to mashup the track to footage of Brown’s green-hued, “Forever” Wrigley Doublemint Gum commercial? Hey: Download the mp3 of the “Flow So Tight” extended version and make up your own mind. Or your own commercial.

It’s no secret that Katie Couric, above, had some serious problems with the ratings when she took over the CBS Evening News in 2006. For a couple of years, there, her future didn’t look good, and management reportedly started speaking in low tones about pulling the plug on her broadcast.

But that was until she triumphantly body-slammed Republican VP hopeful Sarah Palin in September 2008, with a series of interviews that almost certainly helped nominee John McCain lose the November election, that boosted Couric’s viewers by millions, and that proved she was not to be messed with.

So: Where do you go from there? You go where Hillary Clinton, FOX’s Sean Hannity, CNN’s Kiran Chetry, and The Washington Post‘s Ruth Marcus have all gone: With Auto-Tune, the so-called “T-Pain/Cher-style” vocal processing technology that’s sweeping the nation.

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Beloved as the Emmy Award-winning Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood has been for decades—my sis couldn’t get enough of the show when we were kids—and rightly honored as creator Fred Rogers, above, was in his lifetime—he died in 2003—ya gotta admit that there’s something just a little…odd about his persona.

I mean, think about it: Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood is a show where, ostensibly, kids, unaccompanied by adults, go to the house of a single, middle-aged man, who is there, alone, on his lunch hour.

A guy whose middle name is McFeely.

That Rogers’ intentions were, of course, so honorable only makes writer/scholar/media critic/co-sponsor of my recent Iowa lecture Kembrew McLeod‘s disassembly of the TV host’s airy monologues just that more wicked. By isolating Rogers’ trademark, singsong platitudes (“I’m glad you’re my friend…I like you very much”), and adhering them to droning drum tracks, a kind of loopy hypnosis takes over…certainly Rogers’ nefarious intent. It’s long (9:15), but worth staying with to the final utterance.

Just when you thought that the dreamlike logic of white supremacy couldn’t produce any further absurdities, the Caucasians drag another one out of the cornfield: According to the Associated Press, a study, conducted by Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, to be published in the September edition of the journal, Psychological Science, has concluded that

Black Fortune 500 CEOs with a “babyface” appearance are more likely to lead companies with higher revenues and prestige than Black CEOs who look more mature, an upcoming study says.

In contrast with research showing that white executives are hindered by babyface characteristics, a disarming appearance can help Black CEOs by counteracting the stigma that Black men are threatening….

As the AP notes,

A babyface is characterized by combinations of attributes, including a round face, full cheeks, larger forehead, small nose, large ears and full lips, the study says.

You know: The kind of visage typified by folks like American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault, above; E. Stanley O’Neal, right, former CEO of Merrill Lynch; almost everybody in this 2005 list of Black CEOs; or by this famed board chairman, after the jump:

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I’ve just gotta shout out actor Kim Fields, above. She’s perhaps best known for playing “Tootie,” in the popular 1970s TV show, The Facts of Life.

She turned 40, beautifully, yesterday, May 12th.

Happy birthday, gurl!