The Radar: Mary Manning

Mary corresponded with us from their sick bed, sharing an all-purpose convalescence suggestion and video:

I am writing from my couch with a good old fashioned seasonal cold. Like a 2019 cold. It’s bad. About an hour ago, I resorted to my ongoing self-soothing tactic of watching clips of 1980’s/90’s David Letterman episodes. But today I remembered that Letterman had an incredibly brilliant head writer when he started out, named Merrill Markoe.

Markoe came up with all of the most epic long-running segments that Letterman used throughout the show’s existence—most memorable among them ‘Stupid Pet Tricks.’ (Incidentally, Merrill and Dave were a longtime couple and, as an aside, I recommend watching episodes where she returns to the show as his guest for one of the many comedy books she’s written. The segments are kind of the best-case scenario for hanging with an ex! Comedy! Anyway, before ‘Stupid Pet Tricks,’ Markoe came up with the first ever pet-on prime-time segment: ‘Dog Poetry.’ I just love it so much! Hats off to the concept of watching animals be funny, a brilliant idea that has gotten most all of us through some of the darker moments of the wild and grief-filled time on this planet right now and will now get me through this cold. DOG POETRY!