How To Hope: Existentialism 101 — "existence precedes essence"
U.S. Centers for Disease Control & numerous other federal agencies are scrubbing web sites of information, policies — even acronyms — about people who are queer or transgender. The unsignified remain.
Dear Reader, thank you for your patience waiting for this post. With appreciation, I am sharing the full multimedia version of this four stanza poem with all subscribers to reveal the next evolution of 17 Sounds as produced for paid subscribers. (To this end, I release this post to all subscribers under a slightly different CC-BY-SA license. Free subscribers will also still receive the static version of the rendered text for this post under a CC-BY-NC-ND license.)
This latest version is produced with an extended workflow using the Procreate Dreams app. This new offering enhances the animated Hanx Writer typed rendering of the poetry into an even more immersive multimedia experience with composited imagery, video, and original music.
Also please note: this provocative piece was created in response to one facet of many troubling actions directed against queer and transgender persons and communities by the U.S. government in the past month.
17 sounds (4 stanzas) by Jonatha Chance: “The pharaoh Tausret: / a woman I never knew / remembered — still // Nothing disappears / (said the elder to the fox) / without a trace — thrills // Alan Turing wrote / why people like violence: / it feels good — until // the fun turns hollow / satisfaction well-denied / — by the thing they kill” (Music: Christine Newton Bush) | Copyright © 2025 CC-BY-SA (4.0 International)
Background sources:
February 7, 2025. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2025/sample-government-webpages-trump-doesnt-want-you-see/
February 3, 2025. Democracy Now! reports “8,000+ Pages from Gov’t Websites Taken Offline, Including Crucial Info for Trans and Queer People” — the LGBTQ(I+) acronym has been changed on many government pages to only LGB.
2013. I published a book review on the subject of the discourse of erasure for the journal World History Connected titled “Tausret: Forgotten Queen and Pharaoh of Egypt”. It is free to create an account and read.
The use of Creative Commons licenses is intended to encourage and promote the sharing of this content with others. Thank you.