...this will look like some of the pullquotes or subtitles we see in magazinelayout...

This one has a jagged edge in IE but renders well in Mozilla. We used a transparent background. Internet Explorer needs a background color other than transparent for smooth edges. To demonstrate opacity with text the
outer div container has a float:right. This example begins with the color
named darkgreen with an opacity of 25%, then 75%, 90%, and bold (on the 25%) and ends with an opacity of 90%. The color darkgreen only needs to be specified once.
The rest is automagic. This looks great in Mozilla but not so great in Internet Explorer.