S2E10 Blind

Welcome to Mysteries to Die For.I am TG Wolff and am here with Jack, my piano player and producer. This is a podcast where we combine storytelling with original music to put you at the heart of mystery, murder, and mayhem. Some episodes will be my own stories, others will be classics that helped shape the mystery genre we know today. These are arrangements, which means instead of word-for-word readings, you get a performance meant to be heard. Jack and I perform these live, front to back, no breaks, no fakes, no retakes.This is Season 2. This season contains adaptations of stories published in the 1800s. These stories are some of the first considered to be mysteries. For that reason, this season is called The Originators.Today’s story is about knowing one’s self. This is the Episode 10 Blind, an adaptation of The Mysterious Card by Cleveland Moffett.Tina: The story today is set in New York, although the location is not critical to the tale. It is merely where the characters lived – any city could be substituted without changing the story. Published in 1895, this story is told in real time, meaning it wasn’t set in the past or the future.Our author gave us more of a location than most. We know New York and there is a reference to 23rd Street and Broadway. A major incident happens on Water Street. There first reference puts us in Manhattan, but seeing as we have already been there this season, I’m dropping our pin on Water Street, Brooklyn, all but under the Brooklyn Bridge.I choose the address of 55 Water Street, which is the restaurant Cecconi’s. It must be fantastic since it has a 4.3 rating with almost 1,400 reviews. It is just over 7 1/2hrs to the Royal Observatory, home of the Prime Meridian in Greenwich in London. We were in Manhattan in Episode 7 this season with an 1880 mystery of a missing seamstress and a family secret.This story really was about the mystery. The timing and setting are virtually irrelevant, which gives me nothing to talk about here. So, let’s move on to reviews. There are a few different versions on Goodreads. The Mysterious Card had 57 ratings with an average of 3.44. The only 5-star review I found: Couldn’t put it down! My heart is racing!! I need to know what it means!! Here's a 3-star review: Interesting plot. However, the intriguing story turned into an unbelievable/unrealistic one by the end. Although the author tried to give an explanation in the second part of the book (the sequel), it became apparent that there was no way to explain the illogical plot of the first part.Another 3-star review: Two short stories. "The Mysterious card" sets up a situation- a man has a card in an unreadable language- but everyone he shows it to suddenly wants nothing more to do with him. A neat bit of tension building with a cliff handing conclusion. Unfortunately, the sequel offers a solution so couched in pseudo-mystic babble that it destroys all the entertainment value of the original tale. Jack: Our author Cleveland Moffett was the son of Reverend William Henry Moffett and Mary Jane Cleveland. If my parents named me that way (edited on the fly by Jack). Cleveland wasn’t born in Cleveland but I was. He was born in Boonville, NY in April 27, 1863. While he was being born, the civil war was waging. The battle of Chancellorsville began April 30. This was in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, which is an awesome name for a county. The famous Lt. Gen Stonewall Jackson was wounded in this battle by friendly fire and he died a week later. This has nothing to do with Cleveland Moffett except the overlap with his birthday.Moffett went to Yale College, then joined the New York Herald Newspaper in 1887. His first 5 years were spent in Europe and Asia, working as a writer and interviewer. He eventually transitioned to editorial work. He must have been fluent in French because he translated a few books to English. He also wrote stories for magazines and gave lectures. Somewhere in all of that he wrote his own fiction. The first short story listed for him is The Mysterious Card in 1895. The story did not reveal the answer to the puzzle, which got him a lot of attention. The next year, he published The Mysterious Card Revealed. In this adaptation, we combined the two, just so you know.  Tina: We are nearly ready to begin our story. While Jack resets his microphone and warms up his fingers, I’ll explain why are we doing adaptations of these early stories instead of performing them as written. Two main reasons. The language from the 1800s is hard and can be difficult to understand with our modern ear. The speech cadence is just different.Second, the style and length of the stories were not created for listening. With these adaptations, we keep the heart of the story, preserving the ground- breaking narrative, but update the packaging for easier digestion. Character names are in the show notes. And so we are ready for Blind. Jack, if you will, take us in. Episode MaterialsThere are several places where you can find the original. Gutenberg is one of them. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29704Reference linksWikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Moffett National Cyclopedia of American Biography, 1917 https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_National_Cyclopaedia_of_American_Bio/OO8pAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA381&printsec=frontcoverCast of charactersDr. Ridgeway, our hero and amateur detectiveRichard Burwell, the victimYusuf Naji, importerHilana Naji, Yusuf sister, psychically gifted. My two cents Let’s talk about this story. Does the logic work? Yes, but then that is the great thing about magic and fantasy. As long as the author stays within the rules of the world they have created, there will seldom be a logic flaw.I think there is some room to explore the amount of awareness Burwell had for his other nature. The original stories did not mention any memory gaps Burwell had. It seems if he did the crimes, he would not walk away without some souvenirs – torn clothes, bruises, etc. Physical signs he couldn’t explain. It seemed reasonable that Richard Burwell would have some ill-effect of the kulos night out. For this adaptation, I turned these into exhaustion and nightmares.Like many mysteries in this era, the lead in the original story was not so much a detective as the person everyone spilled their guts to. While I gave the doctor a name and put him in the driver’s seat, I was true to the resolution. It is both satisfying – we know Burwell was a killer and the “seer’s” brother killed him – and unsatisfying.This story did make me think about mental illness, specifically split personality. This story attributed the kulos side to evil. Published in 1896, this story explores the idea of two souls inhabiting the same body. The strange case of Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde was published in 1886 by Robert Louis Stevenson. After the StoryThat wraps this episode of Mysteries to Die For. Support our show by telling a mystery lover about us and giving us a five-star review. Sponsor this season. Join our Body Bag Brigade with your donation. Give what you can. Everything is appreciated. DONATE HERE Mysteries to Die For is written by TG Wolff with contribution from Jack Wolff and Shannon Leahy. Blind was written by TG Wolff, adapted from The Mysterious Card and The Mysterious Card Revealed by Cleveland Moffett. Music and production and by Jack Wolff. Episode art is by Shannon Leahy. www.tgwolff.com/podcast Join us in two weeks for Episode 11 Natural Causes, an adaptation of The Notting Hill Mystery by Charles Felix