Exhibition Statement
Bummer and Lazarus were stray dogs that lived in 1860s San Francisco. Now a small, strange footnote in the city’s history, the dogs once held local celebrity status, their adventures being widely reported in newspapers. At the time dogs outnumbered people in San Francisco and to combat this problem there was a city ordinance to catch and kill strays. Bummer avoided this fate by being exceptionally good at killing rats. He began to gain media attention after saving a smaller dog from a fight and nursing him back to health. This dog’s recovery gained him the name Lazarus and as a team they were fantastic ratters. They stole and begged for food, and wandered freely in and out of businesses. They were so beloved that they were officially exempted from the city ordinances against stray dogs. Bummer was generally thought to be the more noble of the two dogs. In fact, Lazarus once abandoned Bummer after he sustained his own injury, only to return to Bummer after his recovery. Eventually Lazarus was poisoned and killed; his death was rumored to be an act of revenge from the father of a bitten child. His funeral was widely attended and numerous obituaries ran in the papers. Bummer lived on for several years, though his fame dwindled. He died a lingering natural death, which failed to stir much media attention, save for a eulogy written by Mark Twain, ruminating on his life and the lack of fanfare for his passing. As is so often the case, fate rewarded Lazarus for dying young and tragically. Bummer’s fame faded without his protégé, but he was still a remarkable dog, a survivor, able to create a place for himself elevated from his circumstances. Bummer deserves a funeral. -Margaret Rogers, April 2014 |