Girls on Phone (Two Minutes Later)

"I have followed you, model
in magazine ads through all seasons
from dead leaf on the sodto red leaf on the breeze,

"... Ballerina, black-masked
near a parapet of alabaster.
�'Can one -- somebody asked --rhyme �star� and �disaster�?'"

Vladimir Nabokov, Ode to a Model



(image via JOHAN RYDENG SPANNER/POLARIS IMAGES)

Red-blooded men and fashionista manquees everywhere are about to get an eyeful over their "handhelds." (Exaggerated cough suggesting feigned detachment) And, we cannot fail to note, it comes not a second too soon. According to Fashionweekdaily:

"IMG, Sprint, and MSN officially announced their partnership for live streaming of the shows from Olympus Fashion Week this morning, to be shown at http://www.imgfashionworld.com/ and subsequently made available on demand at http://www.msnvideo.com/. This confirms a story reported in The Daily yesterday.

"At the press conference, held at the Bryant Park Hotel across the street from the Bryant Park Tents, designer Betsey Johnson, supermodel Carolyn Murphy, author and TV personality Kelly Killoren Bensimon�who will be reporting from Bryant Park for the packaged two-minute video clips�were joined by IMG Fashion�s Fern Mallis, IMG Media�s Bill Squadron, and Sprint�s Michael Galluccio.

"The whimsical Johnson was effusive about the deal, and hoped it would make her more aware of what goes on at other designers� shows. 'I can�t even call up my phone messages, but hopefully this will make me learn,' she said. 'It�s so hard on a designer to keep up during fashion week. I don�t like to go to the other shows; I do mine and it�s over�but I like to watch.'

And so do our courageous GI's stationed over in Iraq and Afghanistan (and, quite frankly, The Corsair himself). This, curiously from an article in the unburied and unsung Radar Magazine:

"The central lobby of the 3rd Platoon barracks has a few metal chairs and a sofa made from two wooden freight pallets facing a big satellite TV so cheap that the subtitle function is often turned on for English-language broadcasts. The unit is highly skilled at that essential mission of the stoned and the hungover: watching nature television with sunglasses on. Sometimes it is more like the television is watching them: This Mexican free-tailed bat is one of over a million in the cave. The noise is deafening. It is no wonder the young bats in the cave want to get out�. When it comes to togetherness, there�s no doubt about it: The wild scrubland of Africa has the cutest little carnivores�. These flamingo chicks have no trouble attracting attention on the great, predator-rich plain�.

"But most of the flamingo chicks Nash and his colleagues see are on Fashion TV. In fact, most of the people they see are on Fashion TV. The channel plays on the platoon�s television like an endless runway show. These soldiers have probably seen more of Milan than they have of Iraq. As the models saunter up and down the far-off runways, the soldiers scan the screen as vigilantly as they do on Mad Max duty. Wade, a valued lookout in his post as an M-240 gunner, has spotted 11 breast popouts in a single hour of Galliano."

In other mobile news, the NFL Mobile will run superbowl ads at midnight, following the game. Press release here.