The Hoax

The New York Public Library held a screening of The Hoax last night. Based on the true story of a writer who sold and wrote a fake autobiography of Howard Hughes, it's a must-see for anyone who has worked in book or magazine publishing. The scenes at the McGraw-Hill publishing house in the early '70s are hilarious, and Richard Gere excels as the manipulative, deluded, but still likeable writer Clifford Irving.

Speaking of hoaxes, there is no such thing as the Spa at Bellevue, featured in the April 1 entry on Gastro Chic. If you go to the famous New York psychiatric hospital looking for a spa, chances are they'll check you in for other services.

This photograph from the entry is an actual photo of Bellevue.









These two are photos of the thermal baths in Budapest, Hungary.








Don't feel silly if you were fooled. Of the hundreds of people who have visited the site recently, not one person contacted me to question the veracity of Bellevue, the state-funded psychiatric institution, opening a spa. Scary.