She Can Cover Songs as Well as Stadiums

So, what was the story with the dress worn by Icelandic singer Bjork at the Olympics?

During last month’s opening ceremony in Athens, the dress expanded over the stadium floor. It was big enough to cover wrestler Rulon Gardner and the egos of the U.S. men’s basketball team.

She told the British rock magazine Q that she represented the ocean, thus, the massive frock flooding the stadium floor.

When she needed help with the lyrics to her song, she turned to poet Sigurjon Birgir Sigurdsson.

“The things I was coming up with were rubbish, stuff like, ‘Pull up your socks, throw your spears,’ ” Bjork told Q. “So when we got together, he came up with this idea of man evolving from plankton into fish and crawling from the sea, and then developing all the way until he reached the Olympics.”

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Trivia time: Which European golfer made the putt that won the 1995 Ryder Cup?

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Firing line: One verdict is in on Mark Cuban’s new reality TV show, “The Benefactor.” Writes Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle, “Just so we’re clear on this, Mark: Your show is stupid. It’s unholy stupid, not just plain stupid.”

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To-do list: Bob McClellan of the (Nashville) Tennessean came up with 38 ways to get through the imminent NHL lockout. Here are some of them:

7. Work on your Terry Crisp impression.

8. Ponder what it’s like to be 61 and nicknamed Crispy.

37. Rent “Miracle.”

38. Pray for a miracle because it’s the only way the hockey season will start before 2005.

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Cyber match: A grandfather in Dunblane, Scotland, was able to follow his grandson’s progress on a tennis court in New York. Online, of course.

Roy Erskine tracked the action when Andrew Murray won the boys’ singles title at the U.S. Open. And Erskine had more than a mouse pad for company.

“I had a large whiskey while my wife, Shirley, had a large sherry just watching the updates on the screen,” Erskine told the Scottish Press Assn.

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Add tennis: Jon Wertheim of SI.com had an observation on the line-call controversy in the Serena Williams-Jennifer Capriati match at the U.S Open:

“Anyone else find it dispiriting that the notion of Capriati conceding the point to help to clarify the confusion wasn’t even in the realm of possibility? The party line is that, ‘It’s not up to the players to call lines.’ But when your opponent hits a ball that is good by nearly a foot, shouldn’t there be a moral obligation to concede the point?”

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Looking back: On this date in 1968, Denny McLain of the Detroit Tigers beat the Oakland Athletics, 5-4, becoming the first pitcher since Dizzy Dean in 1934 to win 30 games.

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Trivia answer: Philip Walton of Ireland. Walton beat Jay Haas in the decisive singles match.

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And finally: B.C. Lion wide receiver Frank Cutolo, who was stranded in Florida during Hurricane Frances, quoted by Canada’s National Post:

“It’s weird when things are hitting your house. You want to go outside because you’re curious, but don’t want to have a stop sign hit you.”