The Flaming Lips, "Powerless"

Zoiks. This new video the Flaming Lips’ “Powerless,” a great, druggy freak-out from last year’s highly acclaimed Embryonic album, is very disturbing. Apparently, the monkey from Peter Gabriel’s “Shock the Monkey” has turned the tides on its human torturers-he seems to enjoy watching a bound and blindfolded woman writhe in agony. She goes into horrible stutter-shot convulsions and he just sits there laughing, the sick fuck. Then she escapes-I hope before she got a sunburn-but, oddly, neglects to remove her blindfold. Then she dances through the field and it seems like she and the monkey are friends. Stockholm syndrome or something? I don’t know. (The part of the woman in the video was originally to be played by Awl contributor Ken Wheaton.)