Bob Dylan‘s 80th birthday is today (5.24), although some posted celebrative essays yesterday. I couldn’t think of anything to say except “okay, congrats, good genes, hangin’ in there, keep at it.” Which didn’t seem worth saying. Then I saw (or was reminded of) this Drew Friedman illustration. And then I time-tripped back to March 2020…

There are two…make it three…okay, four things wrong with this 1938 LIFE magazine cover capture of Errol Flynn. The hand-under-the-chin pose looks fake, anxious. Flynn’s expression isn’t relaxed and confident — he could be waiting for a traffic light to change. The watch is too small and dandified and lacking the requisite machismo factor for a swashbuckler. And one other thing, almost incomprehensible when you think about it…

Snapped sometime in mid to late September 1958. The date is indicated by the presence of Sidney Poitier and the likelihood that he, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon (the latter two were shooting a period comedy on the Goldwyn Studios lot) were almost certainly reading a glowing, just-published review of The Defiant Ones, which opened on 9.24.58.