Was Madame Tussaud a Real Person?

I’ve been tormented by mentionings of the over-played and over-photographed Katy Perry the last couple of days. She’s been popping up in all my favourite places, and all because a new wax statue of her was placed on exhibition in the Las Vegas branch of Madam Tussauds  Museum.

The plague of Perry aside, I find the wax museum an interesting enough concept. My bestie and I visited there when we were in Vegas a few years ago – it was a fun excursion, and kept us out of the desert heat for a couple of hours. Some of the figures were obviously more similar to their living counterparts than others, and D and I were both too cowardly to enter the “scary” section, but it was worth whatever we paid as an entry fee to pose for bizarre photos with our favourite celebrities.  Speaking of favourite celebrities, I bet this particular figure has been kissed a lot.

I was curious, though: was Madam Tussaud an actual living person at one time? Or is the name just that – a name? So, I did an online search and yes, indeed she was real. Her name was Anna Maria Grosholtz (the Tussaud name came later via marriage) and she was from Strasbourg, which sounds like it should be in Germany or Austria or somewhere similar but is actually in France . Her mom cleaned house for a doctor who made wax figures (as part of his medical studies? no idea), and he was the one that taught her how to do it.

I kind of like that idea of an older physician taking interest in the intelligent daughter of his housekeeper, spending his spare time patiently teaching the young girl his craft. I’m preferring to ignore the vague possibility that he was just a creepy pedophile with unsavory intentions and instead am thinking of him as kindly and freethinking – after all, this was in the late 1700s and not many educated men were interested in teaching a woman. That is, anything above the blanket.

Anyways, Anna Maria started out by creating a model of Voltaire when she was just 16, and from there went on to take a macabre interest making masks from the decapitated heads of people executed during the French revolution. Yuck. Eventually she set up her first real shop on Baker Street – famous for another one of its (although fictional) residents, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

Another thing I really like is that Madame Tussaud got to die in her sleep at the ripe old age of 80-something. Not too shabby. 

Is Bel Air a Real Place?

D and I were talking late last night about popular lingo. Apparently, Jersey Shore is the go-to place for the newest hip talk - a fact which is 'slightly' worrisome. Anyways, D kept dropping the 'f' bomb. No, not the four letter one... the five letter one. I guess 'fresh' is back in! 

I wanted to clarify the newest meaning of fresh and asked Dani if we were trying to be fresh as in Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Maybe it was the late hour, or maybe I'm just a bubblehead, but this led me to wonder if Bel Air was actually a real place, or if it was made up for the tv show! I knew Beverly Hills was real, but Bel Air? If I don't hear about it in celebrity news a few dozen times I just can't be sure. And, then I wondered, if Bel Air WAS a real place, does it still exist?

According to the internet, it sure does! According to Wikipedia about 8000 people live there! That place must be crazy big. And hey, you can live there, too! 

This stunning home is only 11.4 million dollars!

Does Whatever a Spider Can

As a follow-up to my window washing post the other day...

a pair of window washers working at the London Children's Hospital. It's a much-circulated photo but I think that this is just so cool. Too bad costumes weren't mandatory for ALL individuals in that industry! Any suggestions on what you'd like to see your friendly neighbourhood window washers wearing?

How Much Do Window Washers Make?

Cole and I live in an apartment building on 106th street, just down the road from busy Jasper Ave. It's a unique area - at least to me. After several weeks of staying with Cole over the summer I realized that I had yet to see anyone under the age of twenty on my walks to and from home. The majority of the area's population appears to consist of young professionals, which makes sense as we are minutes away from the downtown core. In fact, 106th street itself is largely occupied by large office buildings, and at least one structure that (weirdly) seems to house both residents and places of business.

This morning I left for work, trudging up and over the sloping hill leading down to our apartment building, and headed north. I sidestepped the clusters of suited men and high-heeled women on their way back to their cubicles with Tim Hortons coffee cups clutched in hand and crunched some drying leaves under my shoes just for fun. At some point I happened to glance up and over to the right, and spotted a window washer strung confidently over the lip of one of the neighbourhood edifices. 

Being an unapologetic gawker I stopped to watch for a moment, and wondered to myself how much I would have to be paid to hover so precariously along the open face of a multi-story building. Then I wondered how much the crazy guy above me was making. After doing some poking around online it looks like the general consensus is that an average window earns about seventeen dollars an hour. It also looks like instead of earning an hourly wage, they are paid according to how much ground (or window) they cover in a designated period of time. The few dollars more an hour they make than me is not enough to get me off the solid surface of the earth. 

But, kudos to the men and women keeping downtown skyscraper glass so clean the panes reflect the sky. 

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For some enjoyable insight into a day in the life of a window washer check out this article from the Toronto Star: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/635557--skyscraper-window-cleaners-a-breed-apart.