I'm not sure that JWs have exclusive rights to Watchtower imagery--I remember my religious friends used it often. Still, it is possible that Prince chose the song based on his beliefs. I just thought the phallic imagery was great--though not as great as JJ and JT's show.

i really liked the superbowl show and am mega-impressed with prince for looking good in what must have been awful conditions. He didn't seem to be lip-synching or finger-synching (whatever the word for not really playing the guitar would be) which raises the question, how can anyone safely sing into a microphone and play an electric guitar in pouring rain, standing in puddles, etc? The risk of electrocution seems really really high.

I though he just messed up the order of the verses.

Isn't an electric guitar pretty much always phallic?

jonmay, wouldn't that be a great question for Slate's explainer column?

http://www.slate.com/id/2159161/

This columnist is obviously reading Jon May's mind.

jonmay wants to know if astronauts can have sex in space?

I assume that everyone wants to know that.

Heh: "[S]ex without gravity would likely be hot, wet, and surrounded by small droplets of sweat."

I assume that's what jonmay wanted to know.

Prince behind a sheet

Isn't Prince's symbol a strange amalgamation of the male and female symbols, and therefore both phallic and vaginal? (I'm not sure that those symbols were ever meant to be as visually literal as they appear to me, but it sure looks that way.) I've gotta say that the small handful of idiots who decided to cry boner! there at all are revealing a lot more about themselves than Prince's performance, which doesn't need revealing 'cause it's all right up front and pretty awesome.

Zero gravity sex would be the coolest thing ever. It's funny that the Slate article posits private, two-person sex, 'cause if I were an astronaut, I'd be encouraging much greater kinkiness than that among my peers- I mean, with all of NASA watching? But I guess they have a job to do up there.

wow, i'm really glad this discussion came up on its own (sort of) because as Lorelei says, I am indeed interested in it but it's the sort of thing that, when I bring it up, people always give me weird looks. I started thinking about it when we went to Cape Canaveral recently. That Slate article answered pretty much all the questions I have. Shame about the lower blood flow thing.

I assume that jonmay has read this online hoax mentioned and linked to in that above article.

do JWs have sex through a sheet?

the funny thing is that since Prince has become a born-again Jehovah's Witness, he's stopped playing some of his raunchier material in concert, doesn't swear, doesn't reference sex=God too often any more. so the "boner" sitch is less classic-Prince and more convenient risque coincidence.

any way, he was fucking awesome. and it was raining. during purple fucking rain.

second best halftime show ever. man, i wish the patriots had won the superbowl instead of craphead shitfuck peyton whiny-asscrap manning.

jbg, I'm going to say this once, and only once, but the ONLY reason I watched this Super Bowl was that I knew I wouldn't have to witness Tom Brady's shit-eating grin, 'I'm a class-act' bullshit and that lucky system quarterback lifting another Lombardi trophy, with un-ending media adoration to follow. Not to mention we would have received even more of the Belicheck=God, Teddy Bruschi=Jesus garbage that we've had to endure the past few years.

As a Bills fan I have suffered much, but not much has been worse than watching this pretty golden boy from our division win with regularity and with the officiating on his team's side. I can think of one worse situation, and that's a Dolphins-Cowboys Super Bowl, which just might push me over the edge into suicide.

I do have to agree with you that "Purple Rain" was rad without qualification.

This is probably the link we're talking about.

jim, you clearly know absolutely nothing about football, if you:

a) think the officials are on the patriots side (see offensive pass interference, also known as "the patriot rule" and last year's pats/denver game as examples)

and

b) are a bills fan.

indy sucks. they backed into that superbowl with an oddly flat performance by steve mcnair and pats squad weakened by a tough san diego game and the flu. the patriots, chargers and saints were the only two teams worthy of winning a superbowl.

you're also a moron if you're perfectly happy living in a world with peyton manning as the "Face of the NFL," yet save your ire for tom brady. but as i believe i already pointed out: bills fan.

are the chargers and saints each only half a team in your mind, jbg? also, way to troll.