Good news for those of you who enjoyed Amy Goldwasser's "Talk of the Town" piece on the rollicking Shaolin Monk birthday party in this week's New Yorker (we know it arrived yesterday, what, you just let it sit there?): not only is it a pithy little addition to those ASME-showered pages, but it's set to become one sifu of a book. WWD reports that Rodale Books has paid in the mid-six figures for a Shoalin-themed book by Goldwasser and Sifu (master) Shi Yan Ming. Based on the number of boldfaced names/bizarre acts of strength and endurance packed into her 898-word piece, Goldwasser should have plenty of material (Wesley Snipes, Jim Jarmusch, Rosie Perez, the Wu Tang Clan).

Sifu Yan Ming, it seems, has an array of talents to match the diversity of his celebrity fans:

He can lick red-hot iron shovels, break bricks with his skull, fly aboveground upside down in full splits, and sleep standing on one leg.

He can aslo "withstand a full-force strike to the groin." Testing that out probably would have been a fun party game.

DRUNK MONK [New Yorker]
MONK MONEY [Women's Wear Daily]