Holy Tango of Literature

December 6, 2005 5:07 PM

Anthology Holy Tango of Literature: "The question of what would happen if poets and playwrights wrote works whose titles were anagrams of their names is one that has been insufficiently studied in the past." Francis Heaney has published his book online under a Creative Commons license, along with the Holy Tango Basement Tapes.
posted by mendel (21 comments total)

This is awesome... I was giggling during the introductions, before I even got to the main text. The text itself is even better. Thanks!
posted by Fontbone at 5:46 PM on December 6, 2005

I'm as far as Basho's "OH, SOB," and I've got tears in my eyes I'm laughing so hard. [HOTDOGS I IS.]
posted by steef at 5:51 PM on December 6, 2005

You've made my evening.
posted by piers at 5:51 PM on December 6, 2005

I am at work, and I laughed until I cried at "I Will Alarm Islamic Owls." William Carlos Williams is so easy to mock, and yet this is brilliant.

This might be the first time that finding free things online has ever made me want to buy anything. No, really.
posted by booksandlibretti at 5:54 PM on December 6, 2005

Some of these are incredibly good:

SKINNY DOMICILE
EMILY DICKINSON

I have a skinny Domicile—
Its Door is very narrow.
’Twill keep—I hope—the Reaper out—
His Scythe—and Bones—and Marrow.

He loses on the Maya Angelou one though - it's too good.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 6:20 PM on December 6, 2005

This is brilliant, thanks mendel. My favourite so far: KIN RIP PHALLI.
posted by tellurian at 6:46 PM on December 6, 2005

[This is terrific.]
posted by trip and a half at 7:10 PM on December 6, 2005

I remember when these (or some of them) were on Modern Humorist. The navigation always sucked, good to see they're collected.
posted by kenko at 7:30 PM on December 6, 2005

Utterly brilliant, thanks for posting.

now i write onetwothreefourfive poemsjustlikethat
                    Jesus
posted by fvw at 7:32 PM on December 6, 2005

"toilets" for T. S. Eliot reminds of Auden's palindrome: T. Eliot, top bard, notes putrid tang emanating, is sad. I'd assign it a name: gnat dirt upset on drab pot toilet.
posted by kenko at 7:32 PM on December 6, 2005

DAMMIT, DAVE
DAVID MAMET

Ha! I've read that before; it was the first thing I thought of when I saw this FPP. I'm SO glad there's more.
posted by rkent at 7:43 PM on December 6, 2005

I hoist dogs.
Gosh, idiots!
It's goodish.
This is good.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 8:08 PM on December 6, 2005

Stellar!
posted by jrossi4r at 8:10 PM on December 6, 2005

This is ingenious and hilarious!
posted by amro at 9:14 PM on December 6, 2005

Wonderful. Just wonderful.
posted by Joey Michaels at 9:36 PM on December 6, 2005

The Basho, Shakespeare and Wilde entries are alarmingly good (though I'm taking a tax class now; YMMV on the Wilde), and there are many, many gems. Thanks, mendel!
posted by dilettanti at 10:07 PM on December 6, 2005

Both beef stew!
posted by Wolfdog at 4:11 AM on December 7, 2005

Brilliant stuff. I've been a fan of "Holy Tango" ever since it first appeared on Modern Humorist, and I'm thrilled to get the whole thing.
posted by yankeefog at 7:14 AM on December 7, 2005

Oh, yes. These are fantastic, and I'm thrilled to learn that not only are there more than MH published, but that they've been collected in dead-tree format as well. Well done, mendel.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:09 AM on December 7, 2005

Great stuff. I heartily recommend buying the book itself. I got it for my father-in-law for his birthday a few weeks back and was able to sneak a peek at all the ones that weren't on MH (or that I missed at the time).

I will say, with the world-weary tone of an early Francis Heaney adopter, that I enjoy the ones that are truly genre parodies (e.g. Skinny Domicile, Dammit Dave, IRS Law Code) more than the exact parodies of individual works (even though I also laughed uproariously the first time I read 'Islamic Owls'). It's like the great Beatles parodies: The Rutles are fine, but every song is an exact spoof of one Beatles song, whereas Utopia's Face the Music finds the common cliches among two or more Beatles songs and turns them into new, funny songs.
posted by soyjoy at 8:15 AM on December 7, 2005

And thanks to soyjoy, I've just added Utopia's "Deface the Music" to my list as well. This is the thread that just keeps on giving!
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:31 AM on December 7, 2005