Block Island diary: the biggest (non) event of the summer.

• Author: Sabar, Ariel
• Position: Humor - Barbra Streisand-James Brolin wedding - Art & Politics - Column

August 1

News Flash: The New York Post's gossip column lets drop that none other than Barbra Streisand and her fiance, actor James Brolin, will be getting married this August 9 on Block Island. That's a pretty big event for a sleepy resort town off the coast of Rhode Island. Then again, the place has gained some cachet as a fashionable wedding site ever since Edward Kennedy Jr. got hitched there during a four-day blowout a few years ago.

August 2

The media vultures have already started circling. Camera crews from Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood and reporters from USA Today and the supermarket tabloids descend on the island, all of them hungry for a scoop on exactly where the wedding reception will take place -- and what win be on the menu.

The town rumor mill also whirs into gear. Reporters are eager to tap locals for the inside dope, the kind of tidbits traded over mugs of black coffee at Bethany's Airport Diner or while knocking back beers at the Narragansett Inn hotel bar. As one longtime islander puts it, this is a place where "old timers know what's going on behind closed curtains before the people behind the curtains do."

August 6

The Post's gossip column retracts its original story. In a short item under the heading, "Press Power," the column claims that Streisand has nixed her Block Island wedding plans because of the publicity generated by the earlier column.

August 7

Babs is furious at the Post. Just to teach them a lesson, she gives an "exclusive" to USA Today's Ann Oldenburg. In a statement issued through her Beverly Hills publicist, Streisand tells USA Today that she and Brolin NEVER planned to marry on the island. And she blasts the Post for "having the utter gall to say we had canceled our plans because of [its] scoop."

August 8

10 a.m. My newspaper flies me to the island to find out what's really going on.

10:45 a.m. Town officials, taxi drivers, local hotels and area caterers all tell me that there never was any truth to the Streisand rumor. Still, the story won't die. News vans continue to roam the island, and I traipse from hotel to hotel, a pen clutched in my fist.

1 p.m. I approach two summer residents returning to their cottage after a day in town, and ask them what the word is on the street. They tell me that a friend they trust has given them the low down on the Streisand nuptials: The ceremony, just as the Post had originally reported, will take place tomorrow at the Spring House hotel, a majestic...