Nick Gillespie on the Oscars and Other Acts of Cultural Hoarding

What Faulkner said about the American South's uniquely regional inability to move into the future – "The past is never dead. It's not even past" – is now officially a national neurosis, says Nick Gillespie, who fears we've become cultural hoarders just as disturbing as the deranged urine collectors who star in A&E's hit series Hoarders:

You need look no further than this Sunday's marquee television event to grok this more fully than the title character in Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," who spent years sleeping next to her lover's corpse rather than sign up for Match.com. ABC's "Live Oscar Sunday" begins at 7p.m. Eastern time and, if past performance is any indication of future results, the 85th Academy Awards ceremony will last longer, have less plot, and deliver fewer laughs than the director's cut of John Carter of Mars.