It's an un-ironic sleeveless, I say! UN-IRONIC SLEEVELESS!!!Because that's the thing about sleeveless t-shirts; almost anywhere else in the world, the worst you can about them is that they're kinda douchey.
Not so in Mormondom. A few weeks ago I went with a friend to Fork Fest, a music festival for local Utah Valley bands. My buddy was especially keen on seeing the headliner Joshua James, a nationally-touring indie-folk artist, as well as Provo UT native and LDS Church member. My friend described Jame's music as religiously-themed without being maudlin, intense in a way that would never make an EFY CD, in short, just the sort of LDS art he was looking for.
But when Joshua James finally took the stage, my friend left after only a couple songs, dejected and heart-broken. Why? Joshua James was wearing a sleeveless shirt.
Because we have a separate system of semiotics here in the LDS Church--and while in, say, Mexico, a sleeveless shirt merely says "Hey, I still think it's 1992" or "look at my arms, cuz I'm a douchebag," in Mormondom a sleeveless shirt is an unmistakable statement about your attitude towards the most sacred rituals of the LDS religion. Not once during his set did James ever have to say into the microphone "I've lost my faith" or "I'm currently having serious doubts about my religion"--he merely had to wear a sleeveless shirt, one that made clear he had no undershirt on, and every Mormon there could read it, wordlessly.
We talk sometimes about "Mormon culture" as a punchline, as though culture were some sort of monolithic bloc, or as though terms like "Molly Mormon" or "Peter Priesthood" weren't fictionalized constructs we merely apply to any Mormon we don't like. I almost want to dismiss the entire category of "Mormon culture" as a fiction itself, since no Mormon I actually know seems to conform to this elusive, ethereal beast. But, I do confess we have our own semiotics, our own system of codes and symbols, that can speak as forcefully as any words on a page.
Not so in Mormondom. A few weeks ago I went with a friend to Fork Fest, a music festival for local Utah Valley bands. My buddy was especially keen on seeing the headliner Joshua James, a nationally-touring indie-folk artist, as well as Provo UT native and LDS Church member. My friend described Jame's music as religiously-themed without being maudlin, intense in a way that would never make an EFY CD, in short, just the sort of LDS art he was looking for.
But when Joshua James finally took the stage, my friend left after only a couple songs, dejected and heart-broken. Why? Joshua James was wearing a sleeveless shirt.
Because we have a separate system of semiotics here in the LDS Church--and while in, say, Mexico, a sleeveless shirt merely says "Hey, I still think it's 1992" or "look at my arms, cuz I'm a douchebag," in Mormondom a sleeveless shirt is an unmistakable statement about your attitude towards the most sacred rituals of the LDS religion. Not once during his set did James ever have to say into the microphone "I've lost my faith" or "I'm currently having serious doubts about my religion"--he merely had to wear a sleeveless shirt, one that made clear he had no undershirt on, and every Mormon there could read it, wordlessly.
We talk sometimes about "Mormon culture" as a punchline, as though culture were some sort of monolithic bloc, or as though terms like "Molly Mormon" or "Peter Priesthood" weren't fictionalized constructs we merely apply to any Mormon we don't like. I almost want to dismiss the entire category of "Mormon culture" as a fiction itself, since no Mormon I actually know seems to conform to this elusive, ethereal beast. But, I do confess we have our own semiotics, our own system of codes and symbols, that can speak as forcefully as any words on a page.
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