Lest anyone think that the bean bath photo of Georgia is the first YLT parody of a Who record cover, it is actually only the first really good one. It is possible that the first is the cover I did of a personal use bootleg of the 1999 WFMU broadcast. This is not the first time that YLT have used my ideas, which I know enough not to get too excited about.

Hey Ric--don't sell your efforts short. For the uninitiated, among some of Ric's other ideas was moving "Shadows" from the key of A to the key of A-flat, playing TWICE at Le Jimmy in Bordeaux (not one of Ric's better ideas, to be sure), and asking Mike Lewis to replace Dave Rick on bass guitar back in 1985. And before you ask--and after we did--that's Joe Puleo underneath Roger's hair.

Simon Higgs concluded a very nice email about our appearance at the Glastonbury Festival with the epigram:

'Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life'.
— Red Auerbach (Wasn't he a US basketball coach)!?

While nothing would give me greater pleasure than to confirm this quote as the cornerstone of the inspirational speech that Arnold "Red" Auerbach imparted to his 1965-1966 squad before they went out and defeated the Lakers for their unprecedented eighth straight title, it simply isn't so. The quote in question was penned by Berthold Auerbach, best-selling author of The Villa on the Rhine. I am reminded at this time, however, of some words spoken by current New Jersey Nets coach Byron Scott during his season as assistant coach of the Sacramento Kings: "He that climbs the tall tree has won right to the fruit, He that leaps the wide gulf should prevail in his suit."

Cris writes from Japan to let us know:

I was just flipping through the channels, and as I passed a porno channel, and I noticed something - the music being played over the scene was "Shadows" from "I can Hear the heart. . .". Now, THAT's the sign of success. . .

In fact, we've been licensing quite a few of our songs these days. The film you were "flipping through" was probably Barely Legally Blonde 2. Also be on the lookout for "Our Way to Fall" in the The Italian Blow Job, "Winter A-Go-Go" in Going Down with Love, and "Can't Forget" in The Gay Prix Reloaded. See you at the movies!

Jason Head writes:

We had a little debate after the Henry Fonda Theatre show, and it was basically four different people with 8 different answers, so if you could help some fans, it would be great!

What movie soundtracks have been lucky enough to have the benefit of featuring Yo La Tengo music? We are dying to know which ones, and I KNOW at least the one from the movie "Safe Men" aka "Simple Men," an indy film that was shot in Texas and came out about 10 years ago. I couldn't find any others from my various net searches, so far anyway.....

To answer that question requires being a little more informative than we usually like to be in this forum, but what the hell. You asked so nicely. Here's what we can come up with. But before we get to that, you've got to work on your net searches. Some of this stuff can be found with a quick look at imdb.com, according to which Ira played "Friedman" in the 1978 picture "Junior High School," co-directed by Michael Nankin and David Wechter and also starring Paula Abdul (as Sheri).
Simple Men (1992) - "Always Something," "Sleeping Pill," "Some Kinda Fatigue"
Amateur (1994) - "Shaker"
The Opportunists (2000) - "The Ballad of Red Buckets"
Down to You (2000) - "My Little Corner of the World"
Surviving Desire (1991) - "Drug Test"
The Book of Life (1998) - "Turtle Soup"
A Matter of Degrees (1990) - "Something to Do"
Walking and Talking (1996) - "The Summer"
Arresting Gena (1997) - "The Summer"
I Shot Andy Warhol (1996) - "Booker Ervin," "Demons"
Kids in the hall: Brain Candy (1996) - "Pablo and Andrea"
Ode (1999) -- "Dreaming"
The Invisible Circus (2001) - "Stay Away from Heaven," "Weather Shy"

and the scores of the following short films by Emily Hubley:
One Self: Fish/Girl (1998)
Enough (1994)
Set Set Spike (2002)
Her Grandmother's Gift (1995)
Pigeon Within (2000)

Elisa Graci from the Italian radio show Patchanka, asked her listeners to send in some images suggested by our song title "How to Make a Baby Elephant Float." Here's some of what she sent to us.