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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7:23am

Sun February 3, 2013
Monkey See

Choosing Sides: How To Pick Between The Ravens And The 49ers

Originally published on Sun February 3, 2013 9:13 am

Headlines were circulating last week about how, as Slate put it, "almost everybody" is rooting for the San Francisco 49ers over the Baltimore Ravens in Sunday's Super Bowl. Of course, it turns out that what this actually meant was more like "substantially more than half of the area of the country is included within counties in which more people like the 49ers on Facebook than like the Ravens on Facebook."

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11:13am

Tue January 15, 2013
Monkey See

Lance Armstrong And The Cheapening Of Indignation

Originally published on Tue January 15, 2013 12:22 pm

Credit Tom Pennington / Getty Images

7:56am

Fri January 4, 2013
Monkey See

In NFL Football, As In Hollywood, Does Anybody Know Anything?

Originally published on Fri January 4, 2013 12:30 pm

Credit Alex Trautwig / Getty Images

Baseball: The San Francisco Giants, in winning the 2012 World Series, participated in 16 playoff games — and they'd have had more, had they not swept Detroit 4-0 in the World Series itself.

Football: The San Francisco 49ers played 16 games in their entire regular season. Three more wins would make them Super Bowl champions.

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8:55am

Tue January 1, 2013
Monkey See

2012 In Review: 50 Wonderful Things From The Year In Pop Culture

Originally published on Tue January 1, 2013 9:08 am

Credit AMC

10:04am

Thu December 13, 2012
Monkey See

The 'Calm Act' Will Quiet Down Commercials, So What Should Congress Do Next?

Credit iStockphoto.com

COME RIGHT DOWN RIGHT NOW BUY SOME FURNITURE EVERYTHING MUST GO WE ARE LIQUIDATING MERCHANDISE FOR THE THIRD TIME SINCE LAST FEBRUARY AND THIS TIME WE REALLY MEAN IT WE ARE GOING OUT OF BUSINESS ANY REASONABLE OFFER WILL BE ACCEPTED OR MY NAME ISN'T CRAZYPANTS MCGILLICUDDY.*

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11:56am

Wed November 28, 2012
Monkey See

Top Ten Things I Am Not Going To Do During This 'Les Miserables' Screening

Originally published on Wed February 20, 2013 11:44 am

Credit Universal Pictures

It's just about that time when members of the press begin to attend screenings of Les Miserables. I hereby vow to engage in none of the following conduct.

1. Throw crusts of bread at the screen and yell, "HEY, JEAN VALJEAN, ARE YOU HUNGRY?"

2. Do my imitation of Amanda Seyfried singing "There are so many questions and ah-nswers that somehow seem wrong," even though it's really funny and quite terrifying.

3. Refer to the short-haired Anne Hathaway as "Ruth Buzz-y."

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4:01pm

Wed November 21, 2012
Monkey See

Rob Delaney Talks About Gratitude, Perspective, Spaceships And A Career With Teeth

Originally published on Wed November 21, 2012 4:57 pm

Credit

Full disclosure: The first thing I said when I saw that Rob Delaney would be talking to NPR's Audie Cornish on today's All Things Considered was that I was curious to see whether he had ever said anything on Twitter — where he has almost 670,000 followers (including me) as of this writing — that they thought they could read on the radio. It's an exaggeration. But not by that much.

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6:34am

Tue October 16, 2012
Monkey See

A Judge Dismisses 'The Bachelor' Discrimination Lawsuit, But Not Its Concerns

Credit Mark Humphrey / AP

Yesterday, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by Christopher Johnson and Nathaniel Claybrooks, two black men who had auditioned for The Bachelor, who claimed that the show discriminates against people of color both in choosing the primary bachelor/ette and in choosing the people he or she will have to choose from.

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8:00am

Mon October 15, 2012
Monkey See

A Day Later, The Space Jump Guy Is Okay, But How About The Rest Of Us?

Originally published on Mon October 15, 2012 8:23 am

Credit Red Bull Stratos / AP

More than 7 million people were watching as Felix Baumgartner sat at the edge of his space capsule yesterday 24 miles off the ground and got ready to jump, in what was known as the "Red Bull Stratos" project, better known as the "space jump." I saw it myself; he opened the door, and there was something there that certainly seemed to be space.

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10:34am

Mon August 6, 2012
Monkey See

Good Business, Bad Quality: How NBC Is Both Right And Wrong On The Olympics

Originally published on Mon August 6, 2012 12:33 pm

Credit Alexander Hassenstein / Getty Images

The following exchange has played out over and over in the last ten days:

Point: "NBC's coverage of the Olympics stinks, because everything is tape-delayed and cut to shreds, and also the announcers are awful and they only care about American athletes, and by the time I get to watch anything, I already know what happened."

Counterpoint: "People are watching in huge numbers."

Point: "But quality."

Counterpoint: "But business."

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