Pinched

In Louis Menand's New Yorker review of Thomas Pynchon's latest, Against The Day, he notes "Bravura Pynchonian paragraphs sometimes seem to be setups for goofy Pynchonian jokes.'

Here's the example he gives. After a lengthy, learned paragraph by Pynchon on how mayonnaise had swept through the cafe culture many years back, we get this:.

..mayonnaises, under some obscure attainder, or on occasion passing as something else, dominated every corner. “How much do you know of La Mayonnaise?” she inquired. He shrugged. “Maybe up to the part that goes ‘Aux armes, citoyens’—”

That's a "Pynchonian joke"? Confusing "mayonnaise" with "Marseillaise" is a Vaudeville wheeze that goes back at least a 100 years. (When the Marx Brothers did this gag in their Napoleon routine, Groucho replied "then the army must be dressing.")