I was so horrified about the Braves’ game that I completely forgot to tell you about taking Katherine to Madame Tussaud’s wax museum. One of her school chums told her that if she did anything in NYC, she had to go there. I was, to say the least, skeptical but I am nothing if not a devoted aunt.
They’ve got wax figures standing around in the lobby. The funny thing was that as we waited in line, we started wondering if anyone standing still was wax. Like the security guy who was really bored. When he blinked it was a surprising.
The exhibit starts in “opening night” which is set in this big diaorama of a rooftop party hosted by Tony Bennett. Some of the waxworks were uncannily good, and I found myself not wanting to get into their line of sight. Others seemed to bear little resemblance to their namesake. The most interesting part about this room was getting sense of height and size. Harrison Ford is a tall man. Joan Rivers is tiny. That sort of thing.
From there we went into the history room, which, I must say, was surprisingly edifying. See, they’ve got a wax self portrait of Madame Tussaud there that she did in 1842. Yeah. And it is very, very convincing. Across the room is a wax figure that she did in 1801 of Napoleon. It was really chilling.
The rest of the exhibit, didn’t really take me the way those two did. I think that both are recast from her molds — though the exhibit doesn’t say that — but it is still astonishing. I’ve since looked up Madame’s history and am now fascinated by her.
