Tigers: "more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of"

They provoked interest and speculation unprecedented at Sun-Drunken. What do they mean? Who made them? What are they? Tigers? or prototigers? Lionesses? or not even mammals? Hybrid gone deformed? Groundhogs? or beavers? Giant prehistoric beavers? Obscure Japanese cinema amok on otherwise dignified campus?

Because a man knows to give the people what they want, here it is, no more nauseatingly wimpy polemics against bad lock design (I swear those clowns are half-way to a KUCA, specifically, the "useless" half, missing only the necessary irony) and bureaucrats: up close and uncut, you see what I see. These below are real thumbnails; click through for the massive (650-850kb, 1700x2270) originals.

Note the distinctly non-flat tail, sleek skull with slanted eyes and swept-back ears, and characteristic growl with saber-like fangs. Contrariwise, the pose of course is very distracting, and I didn't realise they could have haunches like that, nevermind the protruding bellies.

Here's a real tiger for reference, courtesy of Google (and, uhh, Associated Press, apparently).

But, you know, as much as I make light of them, in truth I'm envious. I wish I could have obscure and bizarre statuary. Couldn't really move them around with me, though.


On a related subject: Ever since I found Gargoyles of Princeton: A Grotesque Tour of the Campus (I keep telling you about these people) I've had that "gotta-catch-em-all" one gets when just the right triviality comes along over which to obsess. Granted this was just last night; but the fact that I went out the very next day to snap some shots suggests I am just as Orpheus in the underworld. So now I've got fifty pictures of miscellaneous gargoyles. I think I'll make a checklist. Here's a sneak peak, one of the weirder gargoyles. This "see-it-or-disbelieve-it" gargoyle is on the local gymnasium. (Also a thumbnail.)