That was late Tuesday; halfway through Thursday, the vice president stood on the roof of a building jutting out into Lake Michigan, with the skyline of Chicago as his backdrop.
His graphic signature, however, was even then less in the setting than in its geometry: Sinatra leans at an angle into the frame, in precise mimicry of his built backdrop; Brando hunches soulfully before a hotel entrance whose glass panels outline his tipped stetson.
As he ad-libbed his way through the kind of weirdly unfocused diatribe you might expect from your tipsy, politically minded uncle at Thanksgiving -- while a suspiciously racially diverse selection of attendees sat behind him -- something unusual happened in the upper right quadrant of his human backdrop: A young woman whipped out a book.
Earlier on May 5th, Mr Modi spoke at a rally in Faizabad, with a large picture of Lord Ram as his backdrop.
With the Statue of Liberty as his backdrop, the mayor pleaded with New Yorkers to reject suspicions about the planned 13-story complex, to be located two blocks north of the World Trade Center site, saying that "we would betray our values if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else".
"It is too late for establishment politics, establishment economics — we need a political revolution," said Sanders, with the towering cranes at the Port of Los Angeles as his backdrop.
With his backdrop of accomplishments, Bonds is expected to command a salary approaching $20 million a year.
It is against his backdrop of rising discontent that Martinez has one last shot at redemption in Saturday's FA Cup semi-final against Manchester United at Wembley.
"I realized I was seeing an internal landscape that Robert had created," Mr. Zemaitis said, a "permanent version of his ephemeral backdrops and floral installations for parties".
When customers arrived, Mr. Kirk would wheel over one of his painted backdrops, either the richly colored brocade or the pale, pastoral scene.
