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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8:31am

Mon October 3, 2011
Monkey See

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

Credit Lou Rocco / ABC

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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7:00am

Mon October 3, 2011
Monkey See

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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9:16am

Wed September 28, 2011
Monkey See

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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6:42am

Wed September 28, 2011
Monkey See

Idris Elba: The Man Who Is Luther, Was Stringer, And Could Be James Bond

Credit Kerry Brown / BBC America

Idris Elba tells Linda Wertheimer on Wednesday's Morning Edition that he didn't come to the United States from the UK to play "black roles," but merely "roles." And he has: roles like Stringer Bell on HBO's dark drug epic The Wire and John Luther, the central character of Luther, a drama series that returns for a second season tonight on BBC America.

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6:33am

Mon September 19, 2011
Monkey See

Netflix Won't Send You DVDs Anymore; Now They'll Come From 'Qwikster'

Originally published on Mon September 19, 2011 11:37 am

Credit Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Netflix has figured out that people are very upset about its decision to split streaming video and DVD delivery — a decision that got it in huge hot water earlier this year. Customers who had previously gotten both streaming and DVDs for a single price would now have to pay separately. If you only use one or the other, you could pay less, but if you still wanted both, you'd pay more.

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6:08am

Mon September 19, 2011
Monkey See

The Emmys: Satisfying Winners Elevate A Sloppy Show

Credit Kevin Winter / Getty Images

Watching Sunday night's Emmy Awards was a little bit like going to the very bad wedding of people you really love: the happiness you feel for the people involved almost makes up for how otherwise unremarkable the experience is.

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10:01pm

Thu September 15, 2011
Monkey See

Jane Lynch: A Life Of 'Happy Accidents'

It's a big week for Jane Lynch. Her memoir, Happy Accidents, was released on Tuesday, and this Sunday night, she'll be hosting the Primetime Emmy Awards. And she's a reasonably good bet to pick one up, too: her second in a row for playing the scheming cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester on Fox's Glee. On Friday's Morning Edition, she talks to David Greene about her career, her book, and the difficult process of telling her parents she was gay.

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1:23pm

Tue September 6, 2011
Monkey See

Eddie Murphy Will Host The Oscars

Credit Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty Images

It's been rumored for a few days, and now it's official: Eddie Murphy will host the Oscars in 2012, the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences announced today.

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9:22am

Tue August 30, 2011
Monkey See

Your Friends Are Not Your Audience: A Disturbing Internet Lesson In Perspective

Credit iStockphoto.com

It's a piece of necessary wisdom that will be shared with countless college students this fall by nervous parents: Tell a story at a party, and it's heard by a handful of people, whose reactions you perhaps have some ability to predict. Tell it on the internet, and it will be heard by the people you know and the people you don't — and the latter outnumber the former by several orders of magnitude. Don't put your picture on Facebook flashing the camera or looking drunk or kissing someone you might later regret kissing.

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8:27am

Mon August 29, 2011
Monkey See

Why Did I Watch Fourteen Hours Of The Weather Channel? I'm Not Sure.

Credit Getty Images

If you follow me on Twitter, you already know that I spent all day Saturday watching The Weather Channel. It started very early in the morning when I woke up nervous and headed out to the living room. The hurricane hadn't even made landfall yet, but they already had a guy on the beach who had been assigned to watch over a wooden pier to see if it would collapse. "I appreciate The Weather Channel's nonstop coverage of America's Pier," I said to practically nobody, since practically nobody was awake.

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