LUDIC LOG

Qiji Po, travelling secretary: The Shaolin Temple is in the city of Luoyang, in east-central China, a little more than 850 kilometres southwest of Bejing. I do not know where is 'Staten Island', but I assured the agent that there was no Shaolin Temple there.

Huxing Jang, registrar: I would describe them as very enthusiastic. Perhaps a bit 'western' in their attitudes, if this is permissible to say. Once they overcame their initial trepidation they proved to be very adept students, but they were stricken with an overabundance of impatience. Many times they would ask when it would be permitted to go buck wild with the trigger. Of course firearms are not allowed in the Temple.

Wileng Pei, master of the 7th chamber: Mr. Diggs seemed particularly enchanted with this chamber. He would frequently express hope that he might learn how to stick his Wu-Tang sword through someone's navel. I told him that my chamber was only used for learning proper foot-movement by walking over rice paper, but this did not deter him from his enthusiasm. Even my reminders that the Wudan school was, in fact, hundreds of miles away seemed not to bother him at all. He seemed very excited about making fabrics, but I told him that was not until the 22nd chamber.

Jianqin Wei, master of the 33rd chamber: One of the best of the young men, in terms of physical fitness, was Mr. Grice. However, he was prone towards mental lapses. Once, I taught him a way that the different styles might be distinguished from one another, an old saying in wushu: 'kicks in the north, fists in the south'. I hoped that the phrasing would help him remember, since they were all so enamored of rhymes. He noted that this was very similar to 'Clan in the front, punks in the back'. I had no idea what this meant, and I still don't. However, I agreed that it was undeniable the phrases were similar. This was an error on my part, since from then on, whenever I would ask him a question about variant regional styles, he would simple bellow 'Clan in the front, punks in the back, and then Mr. Woods would yell 'bo! bo! bo!'.

Huxing Jang: I seem to recall that Mr. Bastard had an odd odor about him.

Kuanjin Meng, community relation liaison: They were excellent students, and they brought a great deal of prestige, publicity and much-needed income to the school. I do not regret their visit one bit. However, some of the guests they would bring were somewhat disruptive. The gentlemen called Beatnuts had to be asked to leave due to their inability to comply with the policies excluding women, and Mr. Freese left a package here which has caused an odd reaction in some of the goats. If he is reading this, please come pick it up. We need those goats. Also, Mr. Simmons told me he could sell me a nice hat to cover the dots.

Honan Huang, cook: Mostly those boys were good boys. Mr. Woods was quite helpful in the kitchen. The only trouble came from Mr. Bastard, who would not eat the plain rice. He said it tasted like paste. He would make demands for foods which we had no access to, such as popped eye chicken and menthol cigarettes. Eventually he smuggled in some dog food and subsisted on that. We pretended we didn't know.

Juanqin Wei: They seemed less concerned with practicality than they did scansion. Although they took copious notes, they always did somewhat poorly on the written and oral tests, seeming to recognize words and phrases like 'dropkick' and 'internal dart' without applying the context. We could always tell when they were enthused about a technique because they would call it a 'crazy ill joint' and telephone someone named Neptune.

Fuhong Yung, master of the 2nd chamber: I was hoping that the fact that my chamber involves the constant threat of immersion in water would help, but to no avail. We even assigned him to washing-up duty but it did no good. Some of the other monks complained, but he threatened to bum-rush them. Normally we would expel someone so disruptive but no one wanted to get that close to him.

Keihu Nang, master of the 17th chamber: That Cappadonna dropped some fake-ass shit, so I had to break his egg like a leg.