The Practitioners of Feel Good! By Peggy Ratusz
W
hen the going gets tough, the creatives get more creative! It’s profoundly evident that artists, musicians and writers are juiced up and acting out the inspirations this pandemic has evoked, by sharing their various talents over social media just to make us feel better during our lockdown. I feel blessed that we dwell among these practitioners of feel-good. It’s as if all of them simultaneously began to brainstorm 8
thesofiamagazine.com | June 2020
ways they could bring comfort to our community, as a way to ease fear and boredom that seemed to quickly and firmly take hold. Watching live stream concerts and the like, has now become ‘regular TV viewing.’ Cellist and songwriter sublime, Melissa Hyman and her husband, Ryan the “lion-hearted” Furstenberg, were the first artists I saw performing on “Facebook Live” from their dining room.
With playful penguin props and jovial jive, their viewership reached into the hundreds. Others like troubadour extraordinaire Blake Elledge and local music giant Josh Blake collaborated with The Orange Peel to raise money for local musicians by introducing nightly “Quarantine Concerts,” before the “stay home/stay safe” ordinance took effect and the series had to be suspended. Since then, a plethora of musicians including yours truly, have
