He was renowned for being an early aficionado of the iPod and he loved tossing sci-fi allusions into a collection.
In the presidential debate last week a coherent thread could scarcely be found; the candidates thrust prefab speeches and wonky allusions into their ripostes.
Mr. Dylan has often sprinkled literary allusions into his music and cited the influence of poetry on his lyrics, and has referenced Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine and Ezra Pound.
And at times she works too hard at layering literary allusions into her narrative: Sara, it is suggested, is a kind of Penelope, still waiting on or mourning her relationship with Jason's father; and Jason is a Telemachus figure, in search of his dad.
Hear him slip literary allusions into a romantic conceit: I am a sailor You are the sail I am the Pequod You are the whale Henry Krieger, who wrote the music for "Dreamgirls," provides some genial melodies to back up Shanley's folly.
He often cited collage as the central artistic principle of the last century and many of his stories work in just such a way, mashing historical and artistic allusions into pop-cultural references and voices that shift between the demotic, the bureaucratic and the formal.
The rich, who bought oil paintings like Heade's, flattered themselves that they could read literary or historical allusions into Lake George art, and so they were generally happy to be deceived by having the tourist elements omitted, historians like Professor Bedell say.
A figure who echoes the red-hooded dwarf in Nicolas Roeg's "Don't Look Now" becomes the wittiest and most frightening creature in "Flatliners". But Mr. Schumacher never lets these savvy allusions degenerate into camp, and his pacing keeps him a step ahead of the audience.
Facing such Goliaths, Mr. Fechter fires every literary allusion in his arsenal without ever nourishing any idea or observation into a coherent and full-bodied play.
This process work provides the researcher with an inside look into the allusions Darden tucks into each project from Duchamp, to Lequeu, to Piranesi, revealing his mischievous sense of humor.
