In my final usage of the code below, I changed the preset to bottomleft/bottomright and added hoffset/voffset values to position the text where I wanted it. The solution below would also allow for placing images in the background instead of text.
<pretexcode>
\setuppagenumbering
[alternative=doublesided]
\chapter{first} \dorecurse{30}{\input tufte }
\stoptext
</pretexcode> [[Category:Layers]]