Futility Closet

In 1932, 9-year-old Lennie Gwyther set out to ride a thousand kilometers to see the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Along the way he became a symbol of Australian grit and determination. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell the story of Lennie's journey, and what it meant to a struggling nation. We'll also recall a Moscow hostage crisis and puzzle over a surprising attack. Intro: Japanese detective novelist Edogawa Rampo's name is a phonetic homage. Samuel Barber decided his future at age 9. Sources for our feature on Lennie Gwyther: Peter Lalor, The Bridge: The Epic Story of an Australian Icon -- The Sydney Harbour Bridge, 2006. Stephanie Owen Reeder, Lennie the Legend: Solo to Sydney by Pony, 2015. Susan Carson, "Spun From Four Horizons: Re-Writing the Sydney Harbour Bridge," Journal of Australian Studies 33:4 (2009), 417-429. Paul Genoni, "The Sydney Harbour Bridge: From Modernity to Post-Modernity in Australian Fiction," Journal of the Association for the Study of Austra