Dear Dexter:
How did Brittany Murphy go from point A to point B? And how did we, as a culture, go about pretending that we didn't notice? And why is she a star anyway?

Dear Friend,
Ah yes, the Great Brittany Murphy Makeover, from chubby-cheeked darling of Clueless to freakishly thin sex toy of 8 Mile in seven years flat. How did it happen? Well, presumably a good deal of plastic surgery, liposuction and hair dye, along with thousands of hours of Sturm und Drang from an elite team of German body transmogrifiers.

Why have we gone along with the charade? 'Cause we likes us the new Brittany, all tiny and dainty and, ooh, a touch dirty. Yes, she's only minimally talented as an "actor," but like every other Hollywood entertainer of inexplicable fame, she has an amazing intuition for how to transform herself into what American wants. We like the little girls, and Brittany, like Britney, has become one of the little girls it's okay to fantasize about having sex with. In fact, B. Murph had the good luck to devolve into a little girl just around when B. Spears was growing out of it.

Dear Dexter:
The Black Hand Vespers (BHV) would like a cool cat like yourself, who is the heartbeat of our community, to join our society. The BHV knows a candidate like you does not come along very often and we want to seize your services before any other faction. The pay is not great but you will help bring about a profound social change. We read your column every week and we know that you can bring it with the best of them. We extend to you the offer of a lifetime membership in the Black Hand Vespers.

Dear BHV, I don't mean to be ungrateful here, but aren't invitations to secret societies supposed to be secret? Also, maybe you could elaborate on exactly what it is that you're working toward. I try to support as much "profound social change" as possible, but your choice of name gives me pause. For the non-initiates out there, the Sicilian Vespers, a 13th century Sicilian rebellion against French occupiers, was rumored to have given birth to the Mafia. The Black Hand, according to the Columbia Encyclopedia, is a "symbol and name for a criminal and terroristic secret society, and especially associated with the Mafia." It was also the name of the Serbian secret society/terrorist organization responsible for assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand, thus setting off World War I.

So you can see why I'm concerned. Having fun with violent imagery and slogans is okay for, say, Wesleyan students, who need to get the lead out for a while before they get serious and head out to change the world through graphic design and indie rock. But we're men. We need to be clear-eyed, and steely-eyed, about this. The globo-capitalist order will not be brought down through violence. Both Al Qaeda and Skull and Bones have tried, and, as we know, Al Qaeda is now a bridge club in the caves of Pakistan, while Skull and Bones has been reduced to secretly financing a Joshua Jackson movie in an effort to restore its dilapidated glamor. Nor will the system be brought down by creative prankery. I mean, we love Ali G (respec'!), and the Yes Men have their moments, but all the pranksters, sooner or later, are co-opted by the machine. They're too dependent on, in fact are premised on, the mass media distribution leviathan, and as such can't really escape its logic.

The answer, alas, is that I don't know the answer. And you all know what that means--Contest Time! A Dear Dexter T-shirt or baseball cap goes to the two readers who come up with the best secret society schemes. The more fully fleshed out your scheme, the better. Sketches would be nice, perhaps a description of the secret handshake or signal, a motto or two (in Latin, preferably). Go to it.

Dear Dexter:
Frank Perdue died today. If Frank Perdue and the Pope die on the same day, how would one even begin to theorize that?

Dear Michel,
Fate has deprived you, and the world, of an answer. Frankie P. and Johnny P. II didn't die on the same day. As to how, hypothetically, I would have theorized that, I can only speculate, though I'm confident that So I Married an Axe Murderer , with its linking of the Vatican and Colonel Sanders in a world-spanning fried chicken conspiracy, would play a part.

Question dexter at
dexter@newhavenadvocate.com