VLVL2(3): A Ragged Leather Hat

[Dave Monroe]

"Access from the street was by way of a Dutch door,
whose open top half, that long-ago evening, had come
to frame Hector under a ragged leather hat with a wide
brim, peering through sungalsses, the darkening
Pacific in pale-topped crawl below." (VL, Ch. 3, p.
22)


Main Entry: Dutch door
Function: noun
Date: circa 1890
: a door divided horizontally so that the lower or
upper part can be shut separately

http://m-w.com/mw/art/dutchdoo.htm

Main Entry: frame
Function: noun
Date: 14th century

[...]

5 a : an enclosing border b : the matter or area
enclosed in such a border: as (1) : one of the squares
in which scores for each round are recorded (as in
bowling); also : a round in bowling (2) : an
individual drawing in a comic strip usually enclosed
by a bordering line (3) : one picture of the series on
a length of film (4) : a complete image for display
(as on a television set) ...

http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary


"a ragged leather hat with a wide brim"

wideawake hat
AKA "Quaker Hat" - worn between @1720 - 1817; Victoria
Wren's uncle from Australia with wideawake hat, 72;
"God wore a wideawake hat" 73; the Gaucho in, 161; "a
drunken soldier in a wideawake hat who carried a
Mauser" 262

http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/v/alpha/w.html

Wideawake God and His Five Crucified Acolytes

"So it came about that God wore a wideawake hat and
fought skirmishes with an aboriginal Satan out at the
antipodes of the firmament, in the name and for the
safekeeping of any Victoria." (p.73)

http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/v/extra/passages.html

Main Entry: wide·awake 
Pronunciation: "wId-&-'wAk
Function: noun
Date: 1837
1 : a soft felt hat with a low crown and a wide brim
2 : SOOTY TERN

Main Entry: sooty tern
Function: noun
Date: 1785
: a widely distributed tern (Sterna fuscata) of
tropical oceans that is blackish above and white below
-- called also wideawake

Main Entry: crawl
Function: noun
Date: 1818
1 a : the act or action of crawling b : slow or
laborious progress c chiefly British : a going from
one pub to another
2 : a prone speed swimming stroke consisting of
alternating overarm strokes and a flutter kick
3 : lettering that moves vertically or horizontally
across a television or motion-picture screen to give
information (as performer credits or news bulletins) 

http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary

"the darkening Pacific in pale-topped crawl below" ...

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