How do I alias member functions in Python?
No problemo! You can alias a method, but you have to know how to use it:

&gt;&gt;&gt; r=str.replace
&gt;&gt;&gt; a='hello'
&gt;&gt;&gt; r(r(r(r(a,'h','j'),'e','i'),'l','m'),'o','y')
'jimmy'


The key is that you have to pass self explicitly, because the alias is a kind of function that takes an extra argument that takes self:

&gt;&gt;&gt; type(r)
&lt;type 'method_descriptor'&gt;