Bongo's Bumbles

  The first page of “Magic, Science and Religion” by Bronislaw Malinowski. Religion Is A Strange Word        Warning, this is NOT an all-ages post. This essay covers adult themes or themes that may not be considered to be digestible for younger audiences. Magic, Science and Religion by Bronislaw Malinowski, originally published by The Free Press in 1948, is an essay that discusses the evolution of belief systems and compares them to the evolution and findings of modern science. Or at least science as modern as 1948. Which, in about twenty-two years will be one hundred years old. However, no matter what the publishing date, this essay provides insights about how our beliefs evolve and change over time, making for quite the fascinating read. This post will be reviewing and commenting on this essay, paragraph by paragraph and will not censor the author of the essay that this post will discuss. However, before we begin, parents or legal guardians may want to review...

  An audacious child. Audacious        Pronounced ah-day-shuss or au-dácious , this term denotes a subject (person, place or thing) as bold, daring or shameless; lacking shame or embarrassment. It is often applied to people who are unafraid to speak their minds to others or who are brave enough to stand up against oppressive people. Audacious can be turned into an adverb, such as audaciously , a descriptor such as audaciousness and even a noun as audacity . The term is most often used, however, with an exasperated tone when someone is upset that someone else had the audacity to say or do something that upset them. Audacious is made up of the root words, “audere” and “acious”, of which the Latin “audere” denotes “to dare” and “acious” refers to “inclined to”.  Pinkie Pie being audacious in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic .         Audacious is the second word in this series because it is becoming increasingly important in this w...

  Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.         Treasure Island  was written by Robert Louis Stevenson and was originally published on November 14th, 1843. The story focuses on a young man named Jim Hawkins as he sets sail with a seaworthy band of pirates in search of a legendary island renowned for a wealth of treasure. It is a tale of high seas adventure, firm friendships and bonds tested by exploration, disaster and mutiny. For generations, this novel has been classic and possibly even required reading for any and all pirate fanatics and nautical-loving readers alike. The author of this blog is a bit embarrassed to admit that they have never exactly read the book all the way through before. Perhaps, if commentary can be shared here online, the author will eventually be able to enjoy finishing the book. Without further ado, here are the author’s comments on chapter 2… 1. A pale, tallow character missing two fingers on his left hand has come asking a...

  Dichotomy     The word dichotomy is a noun which is typically pronounced “die-caw-tow-me” or di-chot-o-my . It is a word that is made up of two Ancient Greek root words, “dicho”, meaning “two” and “tomy”, meaning “to cut”. The word itself is also modifiable root for the adjective dichotomous and the adverb, dichotomousness . As a noun, it means a division into two often opposing parts or views but when applied in biology, it refers to a fork in pairs of organisms. So to be dichotomous is to be split in two and to have dichotomousness , the subject is divided into two.        An example of this in life is good and evil— two things which are so interconnected as to be unable to exist without one another but which are so inherently different that they are split, opposing sides. Or in biology, a pair of different breeds of the same species, such as a basset hound and a toy poodle, both dogs with vastly differing traits, may also represent a dicho...

  Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.         Treasure Island was written by Robert Louis Stevenson and was originally published on November 14th, 1843. The story focuses on a young man named Jim Hawkins as he sets sail with a seaworthy band of pirates in search of a legendary island renowned for a wealth of treasure. It is a tale of high seas adventure, firm friendships and bonds tested by exploration, disaster and mutiny. For generations, this novel has been classic and possibly even required reading for any and all pirate fanatics and nautical-loving readers alike. The author of this blog is a bit embarrassed to admit that they have never exactly read the book all the way through before. Perhaps, if commentary can be shared here online, the author will eventually be able to enjoy finishing the book. Without further ado, here are the author’s comments on chapter 1… 1. Interestingly, this novel appears to have been written from the point of view of Jim...

  The arm returns. The Zip Tie Incident        After the concerns about Casper's arm's white spot were addressed, I initially worried about how well the repair would hold up, since another collector and artist online informed me that simply smoothing out the varnish was not guaranteed to solve the issue. However, I also realized that I could not press Casper's artist any further if she did not want to strip, repaint and revarnish from the start on the arm, not even by offering to pay for the service. So I had no choice but to accept and just hope the repair worked. Now, that should have been enough. I know I certainly felt it was enough. What I did not know though was what the arm would have to go through after the repair to get back home to me. There was some slight relief, though it did not dull the pain of concern when the new challenge surfaced- his artist had sent me photos of his arm post repair and it looked good as new. The following day, it was shipped ...

  Reborn dolls are a literal art form. (Credit: "Princess Ariel" by CamellynCreations ) They Are Art!!        The only part of a Reborn doll that may be mass produced is the vinyl or silicone blank kit and the materials used to make it. The rest is some individual artist's vision, skill level and imagination. My apologies in advance to my readers but I have just had a rough morning at home that has fueled me to make this vent-post. As you all know, I have around eight or nine Reborn dolls (soon to be nine or ten) and I am extremely careful about what and who they come into contact with because I know their art can sometimes be a bit fragile and difficult to repair or replicate, even by the original artist that put them together. So I feel I need to make this post that dives into a little more detail, explaining what makes a true Reborn doll a literal, one of a kind art doll. First, there is the blank kit that serves as a doll's base.    If you do not f...

 Scissors? No.   Casper is undergoing dolly surgery.        Recently, I accidentally damaged Casper's right arm when I tried to spot clean it with distilled water, so I'm going to have to make an update to one of the Reborn doll pages on this blog. Now, I am not yet a Reborn doll artist, so I do not have the experience to repair someone else's artwork in this hobby myself. Fortunately, I was able to get in contact with Casper's artist, Joanne Donovan over at Lullaby Lake Nursery , and she was kind enough to allow me the chance to mail his arm to her for repairs. Today, I finally got up the guts to approach removing his arm to be packed and sent off and despite having watched a lot of tutorials on how to remove Reborn doll limbs in the past, I still almost made a terrible mistake. I am writing this post to let other collectors know not to do what I almost did and that I feel very lucky that what I did, did not actually get to do any harm.     ...

 What About Misinterpretation? An  Astro Boy  fan sits at the PonyTown docks, eating a slice of cheesecake.      A new law set to go into effect on September 1st, 2025, SB-20 , is intended to help protect minors online by banning fictional content, whether AI or created by artists (i.e. animation, comics, art) within the state of Texas. On the surface, this is a good idea that has good intentions- after all, encountering explicit imagery online involving underage characters can be a bit mentally damaging for internet users who are minors. So the effort is understandable. However, the impact seems as if it may be much wider than simply protecting people who are under eighteen years of age online. This law also holds possible negative impact for content creators who have created works that feature underage characters in a myriad of other, non-sexual ways because the language in the law's document does not strongly define what constitutes an offense within thi...