background style - not ready to merge

Hi all,

This is my next installment of addressing #711.

This branch works as expected and is almost ready to go in . . . except for a broken spec. (Comments in-line) Has to do with resource disposal . . . perhaps @jasonrclark can help? :)
We don't seem to be using the blk, and I don't see any documentation for it, so I ditched it. Is that OK?