Amazing StoriesAmaz­ing Sto­ries (1985−87) was an anthol­ogy of fas­ci­nat­ing tales pro­posed by direc­tor Steven Spiel­berg. The series, last­ing for two years, brought together sev­eral feature-film direc­tors and writ­ers includ­ing Robert Zemekis, Joe Dante, Clint East­wood and Mar­tin Scors­ese to name a few.

Of the episodes that I can remem­ber the most are that of Ghost Train and an episode star­ring Mark Hamill as a junk col­lec­tor. The story depicts the life-long pas­sion of a col­lec­tor of ‘junk’ or what oth­ers — namely peo­ple like you or I — believe to be junk. As the old say­ing goes; One man’s junk is another man’s trea­sure. Even­tu­ally as time passes the col­lec­tion of junk is auc­tioned off thus earn­ing the old man mil­lions upon mil­lions of dollars.

Amaz­ing things in life always intrigue us. This is because we want to believe in mir­a­cles and amaz­ing sto­ries and let them into what can be an oth­er­wise mudane and recy­cled lifestyle. When you hear about a foun­tain in Egypt that weeps gold tears you remain glued to the tele­vi­sion in a zombie’s trance. Or, upon flip­ping through the chan­nels you hap­pen upon a tem­ple in Tibet that is buried within the chasms of a spec­tac­u­lar ice cave you are instantly intranced. Why? Spec­tac­u­lar events spark the imag­i­na­tion and the intrigue.