Preceded by short: People'sStuff (LeAnn Erickson, 1992). An affectionate look at peoplewho collect, most in a naive manner that says much about a need toexpress home-grown eccentricities. Spark plugs, salt and pepper shakers,jew's harps and seashells abound. (23 mins, Color, 3/4" video, Fromthe Artist) Fossil watches are the quintessentialartifact of our age. Deemed instantly collectible by their manufacturer,these nostalgic items tell time and it's always past perfect. Theglamorized perfection of the past may be a valid incentive forcollecting aging objects, but as Darrell Varga's curious documentaryshows us, the impulse to collect is more than a need to halt theinevitable. Hunters and Gatherers gathers together collectors of everyilk to talk about their obsessions with the detritus of culture. Whetherit be Mike Wilkins, a collector of inedible food products, or MitziGeiser, fascinated by her collection of 20,000 sugar packets; JohnWhitman, the fixated founder of the Titanic Museum, or Delbert Trew,owner of some 4,000 kinds of barbed wire, the collector is guided by anintense desire to preserve remnants of the past, remnants believed-oftenfor very idiosyncratic reasons-to be beautiful as well as valuable. Mostilluminating is the Bay Area's own Mickey McGowan, curator of theUnknown Museum, who has pushed collecting beyond accumulation to the artof arrangement. Displaying objects he's gathered from the fifties andsixties, McGowan attempts to "incite" recollections of what wewere and have become. -Steve Seid Mike Wilkins isco-author of New Roadside America, a travel guide to highwayoddities.