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."
"... 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?"
inteview in American Eye magazine,
October 23rd, 1974.
References to tweezers in Zappa's Work
- The liner notes of Freak Out!: "Ray Collins: lead vocalist, harmonica, tambourine, finger cymbals, bobby pin & tweezers")
- "Dinah-Moe Humm": "D'you think I could interest you in a pair of zircon-encrusted tweezers? Hmm, tweezers.".
- "Montana": "With a pair of heavy-duty / zircon-encrusted tweezers in my hand".
- The cover design of One Size Fits All (ZIRCON is one of the constellations and at the left bottom of the back cover a tweezer can be seen cutting the archeries/holes.)
- Tweezers are mentioned in The Poodle Lecture
Side note: Zappa's cat was called Tweezer as well:
"We've got a white cat named Tweezer, which is actually wild, and it doesn't come in the house very often, 'cause the other cats don't like it, but it eats outside every morning about five or six o'clock ..." (FZ in They're Doing the Interview of the Century, Part 2)
