At an auction held at Christie's last night, a record-breaking $495 million was spent on paintings, surpassing individual records for works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jackson Pollock, and Roy Lichtenstein. The chairman of Christie's Americas, Marc Porter, said this was the biggest art auction in history. Some might wonder about the buyers—what are these people, made of money? Nope, just the paintings, paintings literally made of money and jewels.

• Washington Post shrinking. Yes, yes, "tightening up the paper's news hole," is a funny phrase. [WaPo
  

Following up on a report in yesterday's Times about the sale by David Geffen of Jackson Pollock's "No. 5, 1948," to a mysterious Mexican, the Guardian says, hey, wait a second: