Monster Mash: Michael Jackson portrait beats estimates; ‘Rent’ controversy in Vegas; Met Opera’s windfall

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-- Sold / not sold: A 1984 portrait of Michael Jackson by Andy Warhol beat estimates by selling for $812,500 and a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat went unsold at a Christie’s auction in New York. (Bloomberg)

-- Shows must go on: A judge has allowed a Las Vegas-area high school to continue with its productions of ‘Rent’ and ‘The Laramie Project’ over the objections of some parents. (Las Vegas Review-Journal)
-- Windfall: A lighthouse keeper’s daughter in Scotland has bequeathed $7.5 million to New York’s Metropolitan Opera. (New York Times)

-- Possible deal: Iranian television says the British Museum has agreed to loan the 2,500-year-old Cyrus Cylinder to Iran for three months. (Bloomberg)

-- Repossession: Egypt becomes more aggressive about reclaiming antiquities from European museums. (BBC News)

-- Cinematic touch: Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami is showing a series of photographs alongside work by sculptor Parviz Tanavoli in a joint exhibition in Dubai. (Agence France Presse)

-- Cat fight: Is the public spat between Dame Edna and Michael Feinstein merely a publicity stunt? (Variety)

-- Honored: Eugene Pack’s ‘The Headstand’ has won first place at this year’s Ellen Idelson One-Act Playwriting Competition in Comedy Writing in L.A. (Theatre West)

-- And in the L.A. Times: Art critic Christopher Knight on El Museo del Barrio; artist Jean-Francois Spricigo’s animal photographs to travel from Paris to L.A.; the Getty Conservation Institute launches a five-year King Tut project with Egypt.

-- David Ng