Miss Clarke

Three days after the presidential election, with much of the country still in a daze, attempts to reclaim a sense of 'normalcy' felt futile, but a collective grasping for comfort was ever-present. In her return to Feinstein's/54 Below on November 12, a one-night concert benefiting Art House Astoria, Katie Rose Clarke began her set with a mashup of Pharrell's 'Happy' with 'Get Happy' by Harold Arlen. Incandescent and in remarkably strong voice, Clarke immediately harnessed and shifted the energy of the room and, for the next 90 minutes, a mutual agreement was made not to check contrition at the door, but for Clarke and her audience to ever-slightly rejoice in what was likely a first post-election realization by many that, well, we still have art.