Linda Holmes

Credit Chris Hartlove
for NPR

Linda Holmes writes and edits NPR's entertainment and pop-culture blog, Monkey See. She has several elaborate theories involving pop culture and monkeys, all of which are available on request.

Holmes began her professional life as an attorney. In time, however, her affection for writing, popular culture and the online universe eclipsed her legal ambitions. She shoved her law degree in the back of the closet, gave its living-room space to DVD sets of The Wire and never looked back.

Holmes was a writer and editor at Television Without Pity, where she recapped several hundred hours of programming — including both High School Musical movies, for which she did not receive hazard pay. Since 2003, she has been a contributor to MSNBC.com, where she has written about books, movies, television and pop-culture miscellany.

Holmes' work has also appeared on Vulture (New York magazine's entertainment blog), in TV Guide and in many, many legal documents.

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Monkey See
12:01 am
Sat October 22, 2011

'Klitschko': Brothers And Boxers Who Fight Hard, But Never Each Other

If you think your kids have the potential for major sibling rivalry, consider the Klitschko Brothers, Wladimir and Vitali. They're the first brothers to hold world boxing titles simultaneously.

Director Sebastian Dehnhardt tells their story in a new documentary simply called Klitschko, and they talk about their story with Scott Simon Saturday on Weekend Edition.

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Monkey See
12:01 am
Thu October 20, 2011

Amy Poehler: Playing Politics, But Only On Television

Credit Ron Tom / NBC

Amy Poehler, seen here with Aubrey Plaza as April Ludgate and Chris Pratt as Andy Dwyer, plays idealistic bureaucrat Leslie Knope on NBC's Parks And Recreation.

Amy Poehler joined Saturday Night Live in 2001 — a time, she says, when no one was really sure comedy was going to ever be okay again. She left in 2008 after playing Hillary Clinton during the show's coverage of an election cycle when, she tells Ari Shapiro on Thursday's Morning Edition, "the country was really paying attention to politics."

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Monkey See
3:30 pm
Mon October 17, 2011

'Why Read Moby-Dick?': A Passionate Defense Of The 'American Bible'

Credit iStockphoto.com

We have a bit of history with Herman Melville's Moby-Dick here at Monkey See. It was the second selection in our I Will If You Will Book Club after Twilight (true story!), and we read the entire thing together in the spring of 2010.

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Monkey See
3:30 pm
Wed October 12, 2011

New Girl Scout Badges Offer Different Choices To Smart Cookies

Today on All Things Considered, Alisha Niehaus of the Girl Scouts of America talks to host Guy Raz about a big update: for the first time in a quarter-century, they've updated the badges that Scouts can earn.

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Monkey See
8:46 am
Sat October 8, 2011

Sports From 'The Onion': A New Book Explores 'The Ecstasy Of Defeat'

Credit Jamie Squire / Getty Images

Brett Favre, seen here looking bummed in 2010, is one of the many sports figures taking a drubbing in the new sports book from the editors of The Onion.

I'm going to make a confession. I have enjoyed many of the same Onion headlines as everyone else over the years, from the exploits of presidents and Congress to the activities of store clerks and sad dads. But their sports coverage, while it's passed around somewhat less often and is a bit less well-known, is generally my favorite stuff they do.

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Monkey See
8:52 am
Thu October 6, 2011

Steve Jobs: How Apple's CEO Helped Transform Popular Culture

Credit Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Steve Jobs, seen here in June 2010, passed away Wednesday at 56 after battling cancer for years.

When the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was announced last night, if you were following Twitter, what you saw was a spasm of grief. Writers, actors, musicians, your friends, comedians ... the genuine sadness was palpable, not only because he was 56 years old, but because so many saw the news while holding one of his products in their hands. This is very much what popular culture is: this hive mind, this hum of collective response.

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Monkey See
3:11 pm
Tue October 4, 2011

Apple Announces A New Phone And Voice Recognition, But Not The iPhone 5

Credit Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images

Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks at the event introducing the new iPhone.

Originally published on Tue October 4, 2011 6:01 pm

Today was widely expected to bring the announcement of the iPhone 5 — maybe with a bigger screen, a different home button, or a differently shaped case — at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California.

It didn't.

That's not to say Apple didn't say anything of note at its rather lengthy presentation. Not at all. But the big game-changing piece of new hardware didn't come to pass. Aficionados waited, wondering and chattering on liveblogs and on Twitter to see if it would come at the end in Apple's traditional "one more thing" fashion.

It didn't.

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Monkey See
10:31 am
Mon October 3, 2011

ABC News And Yahoo! Open A New Partnership With A Presidential Chat

Credit Lou Rocco / ABC

George Stephanopoulos of ABC News is a big part of the new partnership between ABC and Yahoo!, announced today.

ABC News and Yahoo! announced today that they are teaming up in a "strategic online news alliance" they hope will reach 100 million U.S. users a month. And they're not starting small: George Stephanopoulos will interview President Obama at 2:35 this afternoon for a webcast on ABCNews.com and Yahoo.com. The partnership will make ABC News, according to the press release, "the premier news provider on Yahoo! News." The press release says that Yahoo!

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Monkey See
9:00 am
Mon October 3, 2011

Andy Rooney Says Goodbye

Sunday night, 92-year-old Andy Rooney bid farewell to his regular weekly segments on 60 Minutes, explaining that he sees himself as a writer and not a "television personality," and after all, "writers don't retire," but he's no longer going to be talking on television every week about fruit or the post office or whatever other nagging matter has his attention.

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Monkey See
11:16 am
Wed September 28, 2011

Amazon Unveils Its Tablet, The Kindle Fire: Can It Compete?

Tune into All Things Considered tonight for additional coverage of the Kindle Fire from NPR's Laura Sydell and Margot Adler.

Today, Amazon announced the debut of its 7-inch tablet, the Kindle Fire. Available for $199, the Kindle Fire is being positioned as a device that will deliver Amazon's e-books, MP3s, magazines, web browsing, and streaming video for less than half the price of full-featured tablets like the Apple iPad. The Fire is available for preorder starting today, and will ship November 15.

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