Futility Closet
is a website produced by Greg Ross, a former magazine editor, since January 2005.
The website is a miscellany consisting of small nuggets of information culled from old books. The subject matter is highly diverse, spanning mathematics, science, art, philosophy, religion, and history.
2014 saw the launch of the Futility Closet weekly podcast, hosted by Greg Ross and his wife Sharon Ross. Each episode focuses on some arcane topic from history, and concludes with a lateral thinking challenge.
Episode List
- Episode 1: "Calendar Reform, Doll Mansions, and Hitchcock's Vertigo"
- Episode 2: "Mass Hysteria, Airborne Sheepdogs, and Mark Twain's Brother"
- Episode 3: "Extreme Pedestrians, Kangaroo Stew, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge"
- Episode 4: "Mystery Airships, Marauding Lions, and Nancy Drew"
- Episode 5: "Mailing People, Alien Shorthand, and Benjamin Franklin"
- Episode 6: "Texas Camels, Zebra Stripes, and an Immortal Piano"
- Episode 7: "Louisiana Hippos, Imaginary Epidemics, and Charles Lindbergh"
- Episode 8: "Owney the Mail Dog, Candy Bombers, and Bertrand Russell"
- Episode 9: "The Monkey Signalman, Racetrack ESP, and Toxic Dumps"
- Episode 10: "A Baboon Soldier, Lighthouse Rescues, and a Parliament of Owls"
- Episode 11: "A Woolf in Sheikh’s Clothing"
- Episode 12: "The Great Race, Grace Kelly’s Tomahawk, and Dreadful Penmanship"
- Episode 13: "An Ingenious Escape From Slavery"
- Episode 14: "The Unsinkable Violet Jessop"
- Episode 15: "The Flannan Isles Mystery"
- Episode 16: "A Very Popular Sack of Flour"
- Episode 17: "An Aircraft Carrier Made of Ice"
- Episode 18: "The Mystery of the Disappearing Airmen"
- Episode 19: "Testing the Post Office"
- Episode 20: "Life Imitates Science Fiction"
- Episode 21: "A Gallant German Fighter Ace"
- Episode 22: "The Devil’s Hoofmarks"
- Episode 23: "A Victorian Poisoning Mystery"
- Episode 24: "The World’s Worst Poet"
- Episode 25: "An Australian Enigma"
- Episode 26: "A Practical Joke on a Grand Scale"
- Episode 27: "The Man Who Volunteered for Auschwitz"
- Episode 28: "The Real-Life Sherlock Holmes"
- Episode 29: "The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser"
- Episode 30: "The Oak Island Money Pit"
- Episode 31: "Pigs on Trial"
- Episode 32: "The Wow! Signal"
- Episode 33: "Death and Robert Todd Lincoln"
- Episode 34: "Spring-Heeled Jack - A Victorian Supervillain"
- Episode 35: "Lateral Thinking Puzzles"
- Episode 36: "The Great Moon Hoax"
- Episode 37: "Edgar Allan Poe’s Graveyard Visitor"
- Episode 38: "The Thunder Stone"
- Episode 39: "Lateral Thinking Puzzles"
- Episode 40: "The Mary Celeste: A Great Sea Mystery"
- Episode 41: "The Tragic Tale of the Lady Be Good"
- Episode 42: "The Balmis Expedition: Using Orphans to Combat Smallpox"
- Episode 43: "Ben Franklin’s Guide to Living"
- Episode 44: "Ballooning to the North Pole"
- Episode 45: "Crossing Africa for Love"
- Episode 46: "The 1925 Serum Run to Nome"
- Episode 47: "The Scariest Travel Books Ever Written"
- Episode 48: "The Shark Arm Affair"
- Episode 49: "Can a Kitten Climb the Matterhorn?"
- Episode 50: "The Great Tea Race"
- Episode 51: "Poet Doppelgängers"
- Episode 52: "Moving Day in New York"
- Episode 53: "The Lost Colony"
- Episode 54: "Escape From Stalag Luft III"
- Episode 55: "The Dyatlov Pass Incident"
- Episode 56: "Lateral Thinking Puzzles"
- Episode 57: "Jules Verne’s Lost Novel"
- Episode 58: "English as She Is Spoke"
- Episode 59: "The Wizard of Mauritius"
- Episode 60: "The Day They Hanged an Elephant"
- Episode 61: "The Strange Custom of Garden Hermits"
- Episode 62: "Marconi Catches a Murderer"
- Episode 63: "The Rainmaker"
- Episode 64: "Murder at the Priory"
- Episode 65: "The Merchant Prince of Cornville"
- Episode 66: "Eighteen Holes in Vietnam"
- Episode 67: "Composing Beyond the Grave"
- Episode 68: "The Niihau Incident"
- Episode 69: "Lateral Thinking Puzzles"
- Episode 70: "Sunk by a Whale"
- Episode 71: "Godless in Missouri"
- Episode 72: "The Strange Misadventures of Famous Corpses"
- Episode 73: "The Tichborne Claimant"
- Episode 74: "Charley Parkhurst’s Secret"
- Episode 75: "The Sea Devil"
- Episode 76: "Get Out of Jail Free"
- Episode 77: "The Sourdough Expedition"
- Episode 78: "Snowshoe Thompson"
- Episode 79: "One Square Inch of the Yukon"
- Episode 80: "‘Black Like Me’: Race Realities Under Jim Crow"
- Episode 81: "The Typhus Hoax"
- Episode 82: "Stealing Abe Lincoln"
- Episode 83: "Nuclear Close Calls"
- Episode 84: "The Man Who Never Was"
- Episode 85: "Raising Chicago"
- Episode 86: "Lateral Thinking Puzzles"
- Episode 87: "A Sleuthing Cabbie, Edward VI’s Homework, and a Self-Aware Crow"
- Episode 88: "Mrs. Wilkinson and the Lyrebird"
- Episode 89: "An African From Baltimore"
- Episode 90: "The Candy Bar War"
- Episode 91: "Voyage of the Damned"
- Episode 92: "The Forgotten Amendment"
- Episode 93: "The Old Flying Days"
- Episode 94: "The Living Unknown Soldier"
- Episode 95: "A New Day at Charleston"
- Episode 96: "The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara"
- Episode 97: "The Villisca Ax Murders"
- Episode 98: "The St. Albans Raid"
- Episode 99: "Notes and Queries"
- Episode 100: "Lateral Thinking Puzzles"
- Episode 101: "Jerome"
- Episode 102: "The Bunion Derby"
- Episode 103: "Legislating Pi"
- Episode 104: "The Harvey’s Casino Bombing"
- Episode 105: "Surviving on Seawater"
- Episode 106: "The Popgun War"
- Episode 107: "Arthur Nash and the Golden Rule"
- Episode 108: "The Greenwich Time Lady"
- Episode 109: "Trapped in a Cave"
- Episode 110: "The Brooklyn Chameleon"
- Episode 111: "Japanese Fire Balloons"
- Episode 112: "The Disappearance of Michael Rockefeller"
- Episode 113: "The Battle Over Mother’s Day"
- Episode 114: "The Desperation of Donald Crowhurst"
- Episode 115: "Gettysburg's Unknown Soldier"
- Episode 116: "Notes and Queries"
- Episode 117: "The Road to En-dor"
- Episode 118: "The Restless Corpse of Elmer McCurdy"
- Episode 119: "Lost in the Taiga"
- Episode 120: "The Barnes Mystery"
- Episode 121: "Starving for Science"
- Episode 122: "The Bear Who Went to War"
- Episode 123: "Washington D.C.'s Hidden Tunnels"
- Episode 124: "D.B. Cooper"
- Episode 125: "The Campden Wonder"
- Episode 126: "The Great Australian Poetry Hoax"
- Episode 127: "Rowing Across the Atlantic"
- Episode 128: "The Battle for Castle Itter"
- Episode 129: "The Voynich Manuscript"
- Episode 130: "The Unlikely Ultramarathoner"
- Episode 131: "Escape from Libby Prison"
- Episode 132: "The Mad Gasser of Mattoon"
- Episode 133: "Notes and Queries"
- Episode 134: "The Christmas Truce"
- Episode 135: "Lateral Thinking Puzzles"
- Episode 136: "The Boston Molasses Disaster"
- Episode 137: "The Mystery of Fiona Macleod"
- Episode 138: "Life in a Cupboard"
- Episode 139: "The Painter's Revenge"
- Episode 140: "Ramanujan"
- Episode 141: "Abducted by Indians, a Captive of Whites"
- Episode 142: "Fingerprints and Polygraphs"
This podcast contains examples of the following tropes:
- Audience Participation: The creators invite feedback from listeners, and many episodes originate from fan suggestions.
- Collector of the Strange: As a rule, the topics tackled by the show are peculiar and little-known.
- Doppelgangers: One episode explores the strange connection between poets and doppelgangers.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The first several episodes do not end with a lateral thinking puzzle, but rather with a challenge to the audience.
- Moon Logic Puzzle: Each episode ends with a segment in which Greg or Sharon attempts to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. These puzzles, often submitted by listeners, posit an unusual situation which must be solved by asking only yes-or-no questions.
- Once per Episode: The lateral thinking puzzle, and the reading of listener mail.
- Pirate Booty: The Oak Island money pit.
- Shown Their Work: Each episode is scrupulously researched, with all sources listed.
- Stock Unsolved Mysteries: The show has featured some well-known mysteries, such as the Dyatlov Pass incident, the Mary Celeste, and the disappearance of Michael Rockefeller.
