Tweezers

"I first discovered the zircon in 1957. When the piano player in this band I had in high school decided that in order to really play like Fats Domino he had to have the same amount of weight on his hands that Fats Domino had. You know, Fats had that big diamond ring on his finger.

Well, Wimberly couldn't afford a diamond, so he saw an ad in a comic book said he could get a zircon as big as yer fist for £10. (...) So the zircon has always seemed to me the symbol of complete cheapness."

— Frank Zappa, Grand Mother, interview in Melody Maker magazine, July 20th, 1974.

"... a tweezer, as an object of sexual gratification, is the ultimate extension. If you have something hard to grab, the tweezer is handy. So the tweezer has many conceptual usages. And when you take any object and zircon-encrust it ... get the drift?"

— Frank Zappa, Frank Zappa: a Mother Only a Face Could Love, inteview in American Eye magazine, October 23rd, 1974.

Tweezers in Zappa's Work

• "Dinah-Moe Humm" on Over-Nite Sensation ("D'you think I could interest you in a pair of zircon-encrusted tweezers?").
• "Montana" on Over-Nite Sensation ("With a pair of heavy-duty / zircon-encrusted tweezers in my hand").
• Line-up for the Freak Out! album ("Ray Collins: lead vocalist, harmonica, tambourine, finger cymbals, bobby pin & tweezers")
• Cover design of One Size Fits All (cf. ZIRCON)
• Mentioned in The Poodle Lecture

See also

• Grand Mother and Frank Zappa – Funny Mother (similar interview in Beetle magazine)
• Frank Zappa: a Mother Only a Face Could Love