Family Theater presents Virginia Mail, Michael O'Shea, and Richard Denning. From Hollywood Family Theater presents Citizens' Arrest, starring Virginia Mail and Michael O'Shea. And now, here is your host, Richard Denning. Thank you, Tony LaFranco. Family Theater's only purpose is to bring to everyone's attention a practice that must become an important part of our lives if we are to win peace for ourselves, peace for our families, and peace for the world. Family Theater urges you to pray, pray together as a family. Now to our transcribed drama, Citizens' Arrest, starring Virginia Mail as Phoebe, Michael O'Shea as Merton, and featuring Alan Reed as Eric. Yes? Al Merton is out here, Inspector. How about the Madison's? Are they there? Yes, sir, both of them. Okay, bring Merton in here. Here he is, Inspector. Hi, Inspector. Hello, Al Fonz.  Oh, come on, Inspector. Nick's on that Al Fonz stuff, huh? What's the matter with you? Don't you like it on the outside? Please, Inspector, you talk like I got caught on purpose. Well, didn't you? No, of course not. Quinn? He tried to hold up a market. Owner pulled a gun out of the cash drawer and slapped him with a Citizens' Arrest. What's that on your coat, Al? That blood? It's a ketchup, Inspector. Any shooting? Oh, yeah, lots. Eric Madison, the market owner, claims he fired twice over Merton's head, and that was all. Oh, no, now wait a minute. That's not the way it happened at all, Sergeant. You got to learn to get the fact straight if you want to go any place in this business. Sit down, Al. Oh, say, Inspector, could we take these things off? I'll give you my word. I won't try nothing. Oh, yeah. Take off his handcuffs, Quinn. Thank you very much, Inspector. So you think we don't know how to get our fact straight? Oh, I didn't say that. It's just that you never talk to the right people. That's all. You know, Quinn, I'll bet you a cup of coffee. We'll get three different stories on how this happened. It's a bet. And I'll also bet you that Merton here will do everything he can to get up to the pan before the start of the baseball season. Yeah, the baseball season. Look, Inspector, will you please stop talking like I wanted to get caught? You want me to take this down, Inspector? Yes, Quinn, we might as well get this now. Save time later. All right, Al, according to the blotter, you were apprehended this morning at 8.15 o'clock in the act of... You see, Inspector, that's what I mean. Now you're going to read me the blotter. You don't even want to know how it happened. All right. Now, suppose you tell us, Al. Just tell us in your own words. Yeah? Yeah, in your own words. Yeah. All righty. Good deal. Yeah, well, early this morning, I was sitting in my suitor rooms at the hotel. What hotel? What hotel? Oh, the home away from home hotel. He had a hall room with a Murphy bed and a hot plate. Look, who was telling the story anyhow? I'll tell it. You just write it down. All right? Okay, okay. Well, I'm in your story, Al. Yeah, well, you see, I was short of cash, and I'm thinking of going out to the track. So right away, I think that it's marked on a corner. Well, I kind of looked the place over one day just in case there's such an emergency. You know what I mean? Well, I goes downstairs and I hops into me touring car. I got one of those big black jobs with all the extras. You see, Inspector, one way of telling the difference between a cheap hood and a real operator like me is that the bums are always in a hurry. Me, I'm taking my time. I cruise around the block twice to make sure the beat cop ain't around. Then I noses my seat and enter the curb just a little ahead of the market entrance. So then I get out and I strolls very casually around to the back. There, I start fiddling with the plates in the back while out of the corner of my eye, I'm casing the market to see if anybody is in there. You know, customers and things like that. Well, it was only this guy and his wife. So I moves inside and I angles for the check stand and I ups and I says, hey, give me a pack of butts, yeah?  Hmm. And you see, I'm busy. What's the matter with you? Well, how am I to notice guy has a line, Inspector? Give me a look with a give Dillinger the willies. I'm standing there with my rod bulging out of my pocket. And he goes right on adding up a column of figures.  I tell you, they was boat lions. Hey, Phoebe. Yeah. Come on, get on the ball. Take care of this goof. Can't you see I'm too busy? So am I busy. Do it yourself. Do it yourself. Is that any way to talk to your husband? You're looking for a cloud, are you? From whom? From you? Raise your hand to me and I'll let you have it with his bottle of ketchup. Put down that bottle or I'll clobby it with this can of tuna. You wouldn't dare. And it's solid packed, not flakes. Now put down the ketchup, Phoebe. Ah, all right. That's better. Now take care of this guy.  Look, you want to wait somewhere, buddy. Go to the bus station. This is a market. Aye, aye. Ah, call me back when he's come to. All right. That's enough. You can both put him up. This is a stick-up. Say, come on. Put up your hands. A stick-up? Get this clown, Eric. Yeah. This guy is trying... He's trying to hide the joy. Now, Inspector, you can see how a thing like that might tend to unsettle a man a little. Things were not going so pretty good with me and I had my reputation to think about. So I hunches up me shoulders and it takes the rod out of my pocket so they can get a good look at it. And I says, look, I ain't kidding. This ain't no pea-shooter. You know what I mean? Pea-shooter. I don't get that, Phoebe. Yeah, a pea-shooter. Hey, what is this? A gag? Is this a friend of yours? No. Never saw him before. All right. Stop it now. That's enough already. Stop it or I'll shoot. Time over your cash. I want your dough and I want it now. I want your dough and I want it. You watch.  What a cornball. Oh, I tell you, Mr.   Now, wait a minute. What's the matter with you people? What kind of market is this? Go ahead, Eric.  I'll just do it with his. No, no, no. Now, stand back. Don't come any closer. There you go. Ah, you're missed. Knock him over this way, honey, so I can hit him again. Well, the last thing I see is this ketchup bottle coming down on me and then nothing. When I come through, they got me propped up against the cash register. I say give them the cement treatment. Then we'll take them out in the delivery truck and dump them in the river. Uh-uh. Got no cement. Ah, we could wrap them in a paper from the meat department and weigh them down with a couple of cases of soda pop. Oh, no. Why waste food? Well, we could use 20 or 30 pounds of those cold cuts. I don't think they're moving too well. Hey, looks like he's coming around. Yeah. Hey, wow. Hey, want to know something? You people are nuts. The boat of you. You're crazy.  Yeah, yeah. Hey, tough guy, what do you think we ought to do with you? Come on, tough guy. You got no ideas? Police. Call the police, please. Please call the police. You know, Phoebe, I hate to admit this, but he's right. I guess that would be the best way. Oh, sure. If we knock him off, we got to close the market for the morning. We can't afford to lose a sales. Yeah, you're right about that. Okay, honey. Go ahead. Call the cops. And I swear to you, Inspector, that is exactly the way the whole thing happened. Yeah, sure, Al. Now look, Inspector, you know that I am a very tough citizen. Just down on my luck is all. I just picked the wrong place. I decided to know the guy was a lion. And that, that, that mall of his. Wowee. Al. What were you batting on the prison team when you got out? 300? No, 380. But believe me, Inspector, I ain't trying to get back into the penger. And look, I wish you'd stop talking like I was. That kind of talk can ruin a man. Things a little rough on the outside, Al. Well, crime ain't what it used to be, but... It's safer on the inside, isn't it, Al?  Where all your friends are. Look, what I told you, it's the truth. So help me. Sure, Al, sure. Look, I'm a very tough hombre. Oh, very tough. That's all, Al. Look, Inspector... Well? Could I ask you something, please? Go ahead. I know you don't believe me, but well, as long as I confess... You want me to try to keep it quiet, Al, huh? Yeah, yeah. As long as I'm going up, I mean a thing like this could ruin me. You know what I mean? Well, I'll see what I can do, Al. Take him out, Sergeant, and bring in Eric Madison. Yes, sir. Just a minute. Hey, Inspector, aren't you... Aren't you forgetting a little something? Huh? Oh, yeah. Thanks, Al. Put the cuffs on him, Quinn. This is a very dangerous character. Now, uh... Your name is Eric Madison? Yes, sir. That's correct. I'm Eric Madison. You made a citizen's arrest of an armed robber this morning at, uh, 8.15 o'clock. Well, that's right, Inspector. Any right-thinking citizen would have done the same thing. Mm-hmm. Well, if you don't mind, Mr. Madison, just tell us what happened this morning in your own words. My...my own words. Yeah, that's right, Mr. Madison. All right, Inspector, I remember it all exactly. Mrs. Madison and I were in the market this morning at about 7. That's the time we usually open up. We worked on the books and restocking the shelves till about the time the robber came in. Oh, dear. Yes, love? On that order for the Melbersons yesterday, was that a number one can of asparagus or a number two can? Well, it was a number one can, love. Thank you, dear. Oh. Oh. Good morning, sir. Good morning. How may I help you this morning? How may I be of service? Get your wife over here. Pardon me, sir.  Yeah, that's what I said. This is a stick up. Uh, stick up? You better call her over, bud. Honey.  Coming, dear. Oh, what is it, dear? It's a stick up, lady. Just keep calm, dear. Oh, Eric. Just take it easy and nobody ain't going to get hurt. Eric, I'm frightened. Stand behind me, dear. I'll protect you. Okay, buddy. Hand me over all your cash. Oh, Eric. He's going to take all our hard earned money. Oh, no, he's not, dear. Oh, yes, I am. Uh, not a penny. Now, now, listen, buddy.  I've seen your kind before. I think you can bully whom you please. You've never turned a hand to earn an honest day's wages or I miss my guests. Well, you can't bully me. I'll not stand for it. It's time you learned once and for all that crime does not pay. Look, Mac, my trigger finger's getting awful itchy. Well, scratch it, then. Scratch it? If you really needed the money, if you'd come to me as an honest man in trouble, I'd have given you the money. All right, if I make you feel any better, you can think of me as a rubin' trouble. Now, just give me the dough, huh? No, not now. You, you, hooligan. It's the principle of the thing. Now, I shan't give you a cent, not one cent. Yeah, but this is a stick-up. Ha!  I'll get the money myself. Oh, Eric, please, let's not take any chances. Let's, let's put our hands up, Eric, please. Just this once. Not on your life.  Hey, what's that smile for?  Oh, thank you, Eric. Thank you. The bunnies in the register, my friend, just opened the drawer. Alrighty. How do I get this thing open? Just push the no-sale button. No-sale button. Like this? Ha-ha! Trick you! No, no you don't. Oh, Eric, be careful!  Just stand where you are. P-p-p-please don't shoot. Didn't think I'd have a revolver hidden away in the cash drawer, did you, my fine-fetted friend? Now, give me your gun. Hand it over. Okay. Oh, okay. Here it is. Sorry, I dropped it. I'll pick it up for you. Oh, no, you don't. No, I'll get it. Look out, Eric. He's got a bottle of ketchup. Oh, yes! Oh, man, I'm shot. I'm dead. No, you're not.  My hero. Can't understand why I missed it for the first bullet. Better call the police, my dear. Call the police. Well, that's what happened. As you know, Inspector, the officer arrived and brought us all down here. Now, that's all you want. I really should be getting back to... That's not quite all, Mr. Madison. Well, I don't see why not. Well, you can show Mr. Madison to the waiting room now and bring in Mrs. Madison. Mrs. Madison? And we've heard two versions of the story. You just want to hear her tell it. Well, I don't understand. Just for the record, Mr. Madison, routine. Oh, yes, of course. Oh, this way, Mr. Madison. Mrs. Madison, will you tell us what happened this morning? Well, my husband has already told... It's just routine, Mrs. Madison. We have to have it. Yes, that's right. Well... No, no, no. Just tell us what happened as nearly as you can remember. Now, I may have forgotten a few things you understand. It was quite a shock. We understand. Well, at about eight this morning, or, let's see, maybe about quarter past... Honey? Yes, dear? I don't think this attic machine is working right. Oh? It keeps saying one dollar and eleven cents and twenty-six cents is a dollar thirty-seven. A dollar and eleven cents and twenty-six cents is a dollar thirty-seven, dear. Oh. Well, maybe that's why I keep saying that. Honey, on this bottle of ketchup, what's it say? I can't make out the price you put on it. Oh, just a minute. I'll be right there. Maybe you'd better take care of the customer first, Eric. Hmm? Oh, good morning, sir. I didn't see you. Come in. Put down a bottle, mister. Pardon me? I says put down a bottle so you can put your hands up in the air.  A stick up? Oh, watch it. Watch it. Oh, now look what you've done. You've got ketchup all over me. Oh, I'm sorry, sir, really. I'm sorry. Never mind. Just stand back. You too, girly. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Just stand back there. The man's got a good gun. Oh, it really is a hold-up, isn't it? Well, I've got to do something. Yeah, do something. Just open a till, that's all. Give me all your money. Anything, anything, sir. Only don't shoot. Don't be frightened, Eric. He's not going to shoot. Oh, yeah? What makes you think I am not going to shoot?  Come on now, would you? Well, well, I mean... What about the guy here? He's your husband. Please, don't wave that gun around like that. What makes you think I wouldn't shoot him? I'm a pretty tough customer, you know what I mean? Shoot him? Why bother? Huh? We'll just raise your voice and he'll tremble. Go ahead, try it. Go on. Oh, come on, this is screwy. Try it. Say something menacing like, uh, now see, hear you. Okay, okay, I'll try it. Now see, hear you. See what I mean? Hey, you're right. I bet if you said boo, he'd faint. Hey, you think so? We're at the try. I think I will. Hey, you. Me? Yeah, you. Boo. See, he fainted. Yeah, I don't know what had it in me.  Hey, tell me something.  Oh, I don't know. I guess I thought he was strong like you. And I guess I was in a hurry. You know how a girl gets to think in the right manner, never come along. And then when he does, well, what does a poor girl do? Huh? You're so strong and so masterful. Me? You talking about me? You, you just take what you want. Life isn't so easy for a girl, you know. Big strong men just can't imagine. The toil, the strife, the hardship, the tears and endless waiting for the right man. Terrible, terrible, terrible. Well, it makes some women hard, but I wouldn't let it happen to me. I knew that someday you'd come. Yeah, but how did you know it was me? Well, a girl knows these things. I felt it from the moment you came into the store. You saw how I looked at you? Yeah, yeah, I saw how you looked at me. Hey, I want to say that I'm sorry about the gun. I hope it didn't frighten you. Oh, what was that compared to the look in your eyes? From the moment I saw you standing there, it was, well, bigger than both of us. It was? Uh-huh. No kidding. Didn't you, didn't you feel it? Well, I, I... Yeah, I guess that's what it was, all right? I don't have to guess. Hey, want to know something? You and me could make pretty beautiful music to get it, baby. Let's grab the Dora cash register and Lambert for Mexico. Anything you say, handsome. I'll get the money. Can you, can you get over, Eric, all right? I can get it. Oh, no, no, it's all right. Now, you just see, all I do is push the button, reach in the compartment and, uh, grab this gun. Hey, wait a minute. Just shut the gun out of me, honey. Don't honey me, you... See? But what about Mexico? Did you really think I fell for you? What kind of a woman do you think I am? This is the man I love. Eric, can you ever forgive me? I was the only where I had to fool you to save us both. Eric, Eric! Oh, there wasn't no other way. Hey, wait a minute. You mean you really loved that when you could have had me? Oh, he may be a weakling, a simpering yellow-livered coward afraid of his own shadow, but at least he's honest if nothing else, and I love him. Eric! Oh, Eric, wake up. You've got to call the police. And that's just the way it happened, Mrs. Madison? Well, uh, I may have forgotten something, but that's just about how it happened, Inspector. You're a very brave woman, Mrs. Madison. Oh, thank you, Sergeant. Well, now, if you don't mind, my husband and I really should be getting back. Oh, yes, of course. Sergeant Quinn, will you have those statements typed? It won't take long, Mrs. Madison. It'll save you a trip later. Later? If you'll just wait for about five minutes and sign the prepared statements, then you won't have to come back and sign them later. Well, but, uh, well... All right. This way, Mrs. Madison. It won't take long, ma'am. You'll probably be back in the store within the hour. Well, Inspector, I guess I owe you a cup of coffee. Yeah, I guess you do, all right. Three people at the scene of the crime and three different stories. Yeah. Which one do you suppose is true? One of them's got to be right. We may never know. Say, Inspector, it's too bad you haven't got that waiting room of yours bugged. Sergeant Quinn. Well, I mean, that is, I... I know it wouldn't be right, but... No buts about it. Oh, I mean, just out of curiosity. Very idea that we might listen in on a private conversation between two such civic-minded citizens should be abhorrent to a good police officer. Yes, sir. That kind of eavesdropping went out with rubber hoses in the third degree. I'm sorry, sir. Well, I should hope so. You'd better give those statements to the typist. Yes, sir. You might as well take Merton downstairs and book him for the crime. Okay, Chief. Huh. Too bad we haven't got the room bugged. And I had such hopes for that boy. It wouldn't be interesting, though. I suppose the man found himself in earshot. It wouldn't be eavesdropping. I'll say, uh, there was a chair right here by the door. And a fellow jet just happened to be standing on it so that his head was next to the transom and the transom were open just a little bit. A few minutes, a few minutes. You should be over the state line by now. State line? Why'd you tell him a story like that? I didn't know I was going to be telling any story at all. I thought I did real well for the spur of the moment. You thought, don't make me laugh.  Ho-ho-ho, big man. Wouldn't that make a funny joke? Listen, if they'd looked in that storeroom and found the guy that really owned the market the way we tied him up... Look, we knocked over a market and the guy tries to knock us over while we're doing it. Now, I tell you, it was the only way. Yeah, if I'd had my way, that bum would be wrapped up with some cold cuts at the bottom of the river now. Jumping Jupiter. Hello. Hello. This is Lafferty. Send a uniform officer into my waiting room and tell him to arrest the two people in there in the same robbery. That's right, in my waiting room. Then send a car to the Pinedale Market. Tell the policeman they'll find a proprietor tied in the back room. Now, don't ask questions, do as I say. Yes, that's all. No, no, wait a minute. Catch Sergeant Quinn and tell him to release Merton, not to book him. That's all. Uh, sugar and cream in your coffee, Inspector? Black, thanks. Uh, I really have to hand it to you, Chief, the way you figured out that case. Really clever investigation. Well, Sergeant, you're bound to learn a little something after 20 years on the force.  I thought Al Merton was going to cry when I let him go. He wanted to know if maybe I couldn't stick him with impersonating an officer. I guess he's just lost on the outside.  Oh, no, no, no. I don't think so, Quinn. All right, everybody. This is a stick-up, and you'd better stand still because I'm a mighty tough customer.  You know what I mean? Oh, how are you, Inspector? All right, Al, you win. Let's go home. This is Richard Denning again. We often feel that our own problems are unique, that for others life is rather easy sailing. Sometimes our problem is the endurance of a great sorrow. But oftentimes it is the steady frustration which monotony induces in us, an endless procession of uninteresting, uninspiring tasks and duties. We feel that life is passing us by. We forget to look around us and see what many others really have to put up with, what a tonic it is, and how encouraged we are when we meet with manly and womanly poises and dignity in the sufferance of trials both great and small. More often than not, when this poise and balance is genuine and trouble-proof, we find that it comes from personal prayer and undeniable confidence that God is one's anchor. And family prayer too is the anchor of the home. No storm of misfortune or of temperament really can wreck the family which family prayer anchors. It makes a family poised and durable when everything seems bound to crack it up. Our bursts of temper, turbulent nerves, fits of disgust and unwarranted rivalries can reach destructive proportions. But when our Lord comes among us as we pray, the gales subside. We of so little faith are renewed in our faith. Our faith in ourselves, in others, and in Him. In reality, the family that prays together stays together.  From Hollywood Family Theater has brought you transcribed Citizens Arrest, starring Virginia Mayo and Michael O'Shea and featured Alan Reed. Others in our cast were Ralph Moody and Jerome Bakewell. The script was written and directed by Robert Hugh O'Sullivan with music composed and conducted by Henry Mancini. This series of Family Theater broadcasts is made possible by the thousands of you who feel the need for this type of program, by the mutual network which has responded to this need and by the hundreds of stars of state screen and radio who give so unselfishly their time and talent to appear at our Family Theater stage.  This is Tony LaFranco expressing the wish of Family Theater that the blessing of God may be upon you and your home and inviting you to join us next week when Family Theater will present Roughneck, starring Phil Carey. Ricardo Montalban will be your host. Join us, won't you?


There's a number of different ways that we can produce alcohols. The first of these is the synthesis of methanol, and you can see that this one is methanol, and it's produced by the reaction between carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas. We can also produce ethanol through the process of fermentation. In fact, this is quite an important process and one that we'll look at in a subsequent video. In this particular process, we start with a simple sugar such as glucose, and through the process of fermentation by microorganisms such as yeast, the glucose is broken down into carbon dioxide gas, in fact two molecules of carbon dioxide gas, and two molecules of ethanol. A third way is through the hydration of alkenes, and we've talked briefly about this as a form of addition reaction when we were looking at reactions involving the hydrocarbons. So you can see for something that I've drawn here such as propene, so this would be propene with the double bond here between the first and the second carbon, and so if we add water across the double bond, then we know that through a Kovnikov's rule we would get a hydrogen on this one, the double bond would be lost and we'd get our OH group over here, and so therefore we would form propenol. So this is another type of reaction involving hydration or an addition reaction, and starting with one of our alkenes in order to produce often a secondary alcohol, but not always. The final one that we want to have a look at in a little bit more detail on this particular video is a substitution reaction, and we can use substitution reactions of haloalkanes to produce alcohols. So here you find I have a four carbon, one, two, three, four carbon organic compound with hydrogen in each of these spaces and a bromine. What happens when we add the water molecule, an HOH molecule, is that we're going to add the OH hydroxyl group into the place where the bromine is currently sitting. That's going to cause a substitution, so the bromine is going to be substituted for the hydroxyl group, and that's going to mean that the bromine is going to come out of our organic structure and the hydroxyl group is going to go in, and as a result of that we will turn what I have drawn here as one bromo butane into butanol, in fact butanol, if it's come from the same carbon. So this is an example of a substitution reaction, so let's have a look at these in just a little bit more detail. So substitution reactions can actually occur under two different types of conditions. The first condition is when the one that I just talked about, which is a substitution reaction with water, but it can also occur in a solution that contains hydroxide ions. So here we have hydroxide ions. The hydroxide ions will again go in and substitute for the halogen, which in this case is chlorine, and it'll produce alcohol and chloride ions. Now one of the important things about this is I've used this R. R is a, I guess, a similar thing to what X is in algebra, and that is R is just an alkyl group. So it could be one carbon, it could be two, three, four, any number, really. And so because we don't specify it, what we're interested in is the general type of reaction that's occurring here, and because this is a substitution reaction, what we're looking at is saying there's at least one carbon here and any number beyond it. But we're interested in the link between this carbon and the chlorine and the fact that the OH group is actually going to replace that chlorine and bring the chlorine out from the organic compound into the solution as the OH group goes into the compound. So that's what will happen if we use a solution that contains a high concentration of hydroxide ions. If we use water, then we can still get the substitution to occur. We can still have the OH group substituting for where the chlorine was, and of course this is not going to be HBr, this is going to be HCl. But what we will have is conditions that require the addition of a catalyst. So this one is not a reaction that occurs spontaneously, certainly not easily, and so therefore if we're going to have this reaction occurring, then we need to add a catalyst to this reaction in order to drive it towards the right. These are two different ways that hydroxyl groups can be substituted for a halogen in an organic compound, and both of those will produce an alcohol as a product of the substitution reactions. Thanks for watching.


The most central beliefs about art is that we have it specifically so that we can deal with things for which any other type of language is somehow incapable. I mean, I think that what I can say to you with my words is about this much. What I can give you through the work that I do is quite a bit larger, and I really believe that that's true for all of the art. So there's a bit of an inherent contradiction when I'm asked to come and speak about my work because, as I just said, it's really non-verbal. It's not about language. So I'm going to be showing some slides and some video clips behind me, and my advice would be, if at all possible, consider paying more attention to what's behind me and less attention to what I'm saying if that's at all possible. A second really core belief that I hold is that whatever an artist is, whoever they have become at the moment that they complete a work of art is what that work of art will always contain, and that can be simple, it can be complex, it can be cynical, it can be happy, it can be almost anything. But it always abides in that work from that point on. I happen to be, by personality, a type of individual who really cares about the old questions. Where did I come from? What am I to do while I'm here? What if anything happens when I leave this form? And I think I might have made a fairly good monk, but I think I had three children by the time I decided that that might be a possibility. I work in very small scale. I'm a self-taught, I'm a sculptor, I use primarily wood, sometimes combined with found objects, but it's basically small scale carving. So that's all I'm going to say about that. You'll also notice as the slides go through, there will be a sudden unexpected change. I will not be talking about that. You'll notice it when it happens. I'll give you some understanding of that a little bit later in the talk. And suddenly, for some unknown reason, I felt very called to try and explore visual art. And I knew, as I said, very little about it. So the first thing I did was I decided to go and just look at everything contemporary that I could find. I went to the galleries, I went to the museums, I read art magazines, and I looked at all of this stuff. And the first thing I noticed was that I didn't get it. I could not connect with it for some reason. Whereas with literature, with music, with theater, with poetry, I'd have this thing that hit me right here. And with visual art, that did not happen. And my assumption was this is because I am failing to understand what art is about. And I think that was a correct assumption. I really did not understand contemporary art at all. So my first two years as a working studio artist was really spent in educating myself. I decided to study art history with a very specific emphasis on modern art history because that was the period in which I was working. And with an even more specific emphasis on contemporary critical theory because I discovered early on that that was what was driving contemporary art.  And I think that's a very legitimate, a very intelligent, a very worthwhile thing to do. And that's what modernism did. And we can think about that disassembly of art in order to understand it as having broken it into three basic areas. And we can call them head, heart, and hand. Head is the intellectual component of art making. And it's when you're really in your conscious mind and you're trying to think about what it is that you're creating in the world. That eventually becomes conceptual art, the dominant form worldwide. If you go to any of the big box museums pretty much anywhere on the planet, what you're likely to be seeing is what we refer to as conceptual art. The second form, heart, is the emotive content of art making. It's really how the artist feels. And it can be kind of a very powerful expression directly onto a canvas. But it's expressionism, it's a way to emote onto the canvas. And the third type of art making that modernism was broken into is hand. It's the technical side of art making. And that eventually for some reason becomes kind of the bastard child of the other two. It really, it so drops out of favor that we almost don't see it. It becomes what we refer to as craft. And it's very poorly regarded in the art world. So when I looked at these three possible avenues to pursue a career in art, I was not attracted to any one of the three. And what I decided to do was to attempt to recombine them into a single form. And that that form would be sent around this core group of interests of mine, which were basic life questions, very humanistic questions. That's what I did from about 1980 until the year 2000. I simply explored those questions in my work. And that went along incredibly well. And here's the moment where I'm not gonna talk about this for quite a while yet, but this is a moment we'll come back to. So at the end of that 20 year period, I had a very, very nice career. I had a lot of support. It was really a good career. I had no complaints about it. And I had also never really been blocked as an artist. Around the year 2000, I experienced a total creative blockage. And I suspect that the creative people in the room either have a fear of that or they've experienced it. And it was absolutely complete. And I feel like I'm a fairly smart guy. And so I thought I can work, I can think my way out of this. And so I proceeded to do absolutely everything I could do. I made scale changes, I changed materials. I brought different intellectual things into my world. I changed the way I lived. I closed my major studio in downtown Los Angeles. Really changed pretty much everything, none of it worked. And at the end of a five year period of really just a very painful struggle, I one day had to say to myself, that's it, I am no longer an artist. This thing that I've devoted my life to is now over, I can't go on. And it was painful to say it, but it was also extraordinarily liberating. I just felt this burden removed. Suddenly I did not, I don't know what the non-artists in the audience think art banking is about, but it's an incredibly difficult thing. If you're doing with diligence and devotion, it's quite a hard job. And so I suddenly had that relieved, it was relieved from me. I did not any longer have to do this kind of work. And about three days after I said, I'm not an artist, I'm gonna start some kind of new life, I went to bed at about one o'clock in the morning. I had at about two o'clock in the morning, I felt this push. And I was pushed back into consciousness in a very strange way. When I awakened, I was in contact with my dream state. I now know that this is called the hypnopompic state. It's a state where we're bridged between the conscious mind and the unconscious mind of the subconscious mind, the dream world. And in that state, I could see a new world that I'd never seen before. And it was very, very complete. It had characters, it had architecture, it had landscape, things I'd never seen before. It had art forms that I'd never seen before. The one thing I was familiar with was that these were my characters who were inhabiting this world. But they moved, and that's the critical thing. It was an amazing opportunity to stay in contact with the dream world. And between about two o'clock in the morning and about 5.30 or 6 in the morning, I simply looked at this world and attempted to memorize it. I just wanted to see and remember every single detail of what was in front of me. About 5.30 or 6 in the morning, my wife awakened. I was literally afraid to move. I asked her if she would bring me paper and pencil. And I started writing down the things that I had seen and as much detail as I could possibly capture. I was in that state of suspension between the dream world and the waking world for about 12 hours. It simply didn't go away. Now this is technically known as the hypnopompic state. And ordinarily we just get a tiny glimpse of that. But in my case, I was suspended there. And at the end of this one, I'd captured as much of the information as I possibly could. I realized I was now going to embark on a professional life as a filmmaker, as an animator, doing stop motion animation with these characters that I've created. And from that moment until this, that's what I've worked on for the last five years. I have worked day and night, 12, 14, 16, 18, 24 hours a day, trying to bring this into the world. And I'm doing everything entirely on my own. I create the figures. I build the sets. I create the lighting system for it. I built a theatrical stage on which they move. I've created the animation. I've taught myself how to use Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro. And in the end, I've been able to actually put together these short films that are meant to be very much a kind of visual poetry. In the beginning, I thought that they would tell the story that I had seen in this dreamlike state, because it had a very strong narrative. It had a definite beginning, a middle, a lot of action in the middle, had a clear ending. And yet when I started to make these things, they took over and went in the direction that they wanted to go in. They really became their own personalities. And I realized that they were not actually telling stories. They were kind of visual poetry. And that this notion that I would be a filmmaker in the sense that I would make some kind of theatrical release film disappeared. And I realized, OK, what I'm doing is making very short films. And I'm trying to capture in those films, going all the way back to what I first said in the beginning, I'm trying to catch something very human in these films, basic human questions. Now, whether I'm doing that succeeding or failing is really for other people to figure out. But this is what I've been called to do. And this is what I've been doing. As I said, I've been working almost six years on this project. At the end of that six-year period, we've completed about 12 and a half minutes of footage. I had the opportunity of exhibiting this footage for the first time a few months ago in an important museum in California. And people responded to it incredibly. I wondered if I could actually hold people's attention with a non-linear, non-narrative story. It's a sort of oxymoron. I'm not telling a story, but I am telling a story. The content, the feeling, the kind of emotional state that we fall into when we're being told stories is what I found in these works. And at some point, as a creative person, I had to step back and look at these things objectively. And I just thought, I don't know where these are coming from, but I really like them a lot. And that's sort of where I am with this project at this point. And it's been really interesting to be exposed to this incredible body of people who are doing things that are very tangible in terms of changing the world.


We have proposed three new measures of shared information, unique information, and synergistic information for two random variables, yz, when conditioned on a third random variable, x. These measures are based on the idea of unique information, which states that shared and unique information should depend solely on the marginal distributions of the pairs, x, y, x, z, and yz. In addition, these measures satisfy an important invariance property, meaning they are bounded by any other measures that also satisfy this property. We then compared these measures to other candidate measures and found that they provide useful insights into the relationship between shared, unique and synergistic information. This article was authored by Nils Burt Schinger, Johannes Rau, Eckhart Ulbricht, and others.