On my fifteenth birthday, my mother said she would spend five dollars on me (a lot of money for us then), and asked me what I wanted. I said, "Well, instead of buying me something, why don't you just let me make a long-distance phone call?" (Nobody in our house had ever made a long-distance phone call.) I decided that I would call Edgard Varèse. I deduced that a person who looked like a mad scientist could only live in a place called Greenwich Village. So I called New York information and asked if they had a listing for Edgard Varèse. Sure enough, they did. They even gave me his street address.

Frank Zappa, The Real Frank Zappa Book (Touchstone, 1999)