Tigers as social animals

I found out a little more about what this book is about today.

As I walked the narrow road down to campus last night I began to feel like I was in the middle of a 1920's Broadway musical. There were all these people, walking the other way, for some unclear reason (no one comes to visit us). They were all dressed quite similarly: straw hats, like from Citizen Kane or a carnival act, with bits of cloth or a ribbon tied to it, in orange or black or both, and flimsy-threaded suit jackets cut in matching, antiquated style, with checkered diamonds of orange, black, and white, or vests with the same pattern, over white or black shirts and white pants. Everyone is wearing these buttons over their breast with class numerals in large font above their name. Later I determined that they had some kind of event going on in the courtyard one over from my room, but I didn't stop to ask questions.

Later still I saw a paper posted with some kind of schedule on it (yes, it was orange paper), and from this I gleaned that there is something going on called Reunions 2007.

Since yesterday it's been all tigers, all the time. Blouses of orange, or mottled orange and black and white. T-shirts of orange, of course, and t-shirts with the university name in that ubiquitous arched font, or t-shirts in black with an enormous orange letter “P” on the back, as though everyone knows what that means. Kids dressed up like their parents, the poor guys, or in coloured shirts and caps. A sea of orange shirts and khaki shorts under carnivalesque tarps (good planning: between spells of awful heat it rained something fierce here last night, thunder and lightning, for a few hours). Suit jackets in orange and black stripes, of variable width, for some; slick sporty rain jackets in black and orange, patterned after the university crest, with class numerals on the back, for others. A few groups in what might have been track suits in orange with black piping, but the impression given was more somewhere between astronaut and construction zone traffic warden. Hats and caps of all styles for the sunny weather, though I didn't see any tiger-themed parasols: not just straw hats or American hats but Texan hats and cloth hats and English bonnets. For the gents, ties, solid orange or striped or a black field with pattern of orange crests or shields with black relief. Handbags in a plurality of styles, if not colours, for the ladies. Cloth belts of orange and black stripes – well, it would be better if no one at all wore those. All this and still more besides, but not all that ornaments is orange.

I saw three kids riding the back of a bronzed Bengal, getting their picture taken. I think I want my picture taken, and you know where.

Lawn signs were posted for the mayoral election in orange and black and white. Actually, signs for the Democratic primary for the mayoral election.

I saw an elderly man on a scooter with an orange pennant flag. No stripes that I could see. You might think that would be brash, but I got the impression that the older alumni were enjoying things rather more than their newer brethren.

Shops with Princeton pennants in the windows, shops with plush tigers reclining on rails, shops with signs offering a fifteen-percent discount to anyone wearing orange and black (meaning they gouge the locals but not the tourists? – counterintuitive.)

An enormous inflated triangle, in orange, half again as tall as I, with black lettering promising "Princeton's Famous Triangle Show!" Elsewhere, balloons, in orange or black, of course, or orange with black strokes, but not as many as you might guess. It may be that the main balloon-using events occurred before I came by, or are yet to come.

And, heavens guard us, I spotted no less than four tiger tails, two apparently attached to people, so that they became human-tiger hybrids. (Science has gone too far, I say.) No, I couldn't quite see how they were being worn. One kid was sitting with his back to me. The first one I saw was trailing a woman as she walked. I did a double-take, but she quickly vanished from sight. It seemed to be hanging from a back left pocket, or possibly from a belt loop on that side.

Quite a show. Makes me want to buy that book. Je suis désolé, but I've no photos to show you. In truth, I was too frightened to try. Well, who can say how a tiger might startle?