Torah Obscura Radio Hour
Season 1, Chapters 1 to 8, presents ”A Mobster’s Midrash” read by the author, Michael Diamond. A gangster version of the Bible set in the 1970s/80s worlds of music and mobsters, A Mobster’s Midrash is a surreal fusion of mob‑family saga, retold mythologies, and cosmic satire. The shamus narrator tangles with crime syndicates, resurrected deities, musicians and misfits. Across its chapters, it reframes biblical and mythological archetypes—Isis, Osiris, pillars of fire and cloud—inside a comic‑noir world of clubs, Jersey highways, Union shakedowns, and psychedelic concert caravans. It’s an epic exploration of the art of the story—sacred, profane, and personal—imagined, broken, and recast.
Season 2, chapters 9 to 16, presents "The Proceedings of the Academy of the Dream Society read by the author, Michael Diamond. The narrator, Boss Joey, or is it Jakey, picks up the narrative from the first book of the trilogy and takes it to the next plane, the world of dreams, the Interworld, the Bardo, though some would call it Purgatory. It is a sprawling, surreal, and metafictional autobiographical narrative that blends personal history with mythic symbolism, mystical lore, dream logic, and humorous reimaginings of religious and cultural traditions. The narrator moves between memory, fantasy, and metaphor as he encounters figures from the “Dream Society,” revisits key moments in his life, and reflects on identity, spirituality, suffering, and transformation. It a visionary epic—part memoir, part dream‑journal, part satire—with recurring motifs of initiation, wandering, healing, and the search for sovereignty.
Listen on:
Torah Obscura Radio Hour
Season 1, Chapters 1 to 8, presents ”A Mobster’s Midrash” read by the author, Michael Diamond. A gangster version of the Bible set in the 1970s/80s worlds of music and mobsters, A Mobster’s Midrash is a surreal fusion of mob‑family saga, retold mythologies, and cosmic satire. The shamus narrator tangles with crime syndicates, resurrected deities, musicians and misfits. Across its chapters, it reframes biblical and mythological archetypes—Isis, Osiris, pillars of fire and cloud—inside a comic‑noir world of clubs, Jersey highways, Union shakedowns, and psychedelic concert caravans. It’s an epic exploration of the art of the story—sacred, profane, and personal—imagined, broken, and recast.
Season 2, chapters 9 to 16, presents "The Proceedings of the Academy of the Dream Society read by the author, Michael Diamond. The narrator, Boss Joey, or is it Jakey, picks up the narrative from the first book of the trilogy and takes it to the next plane, the world of dreams, the Interworld, the Bardo, though some would call it Purgatory. It is a sprawling, surreal, and metafictional autobiographical narrative that blends personal history with mythic symbolism, mystical lore, dream logic, and humorous reimaginings of religious and cultural traditions. The narrator moves between memory, fantasy, and metaphor as he encounters figures from the “Dream Society,” revisits key moments in his life, and reflects on identity, spirituality, suffering, and transformation. It a visionary epic—part memoir, part dream‑journal, part satire—with recurring motifs of initiation, wandering, healing, and the search for sovereignty.
Episodes
Friday Jan 16, 2026
Friday Jan 16, 2026
In Episode 9, “The Piyyut of the Djinn,” opening chapter of "The Proceedings of the Academy of the Dream Society," the narrator and his beloved arrive at the Academy of the Dream Society and encounter the mysterious Registrar who admits them only with a cryptic password, from a piyyut tied to a rain-making djinn, Af Bri. Surreal initiation rituals, probing examinations, and intimate encounters with the librarian explore memory, interpretation, and the strange bureaucracy that governs entry into the dream world.
Monday Jan 19, 2026
Monday Jan 19, 2026
In Chapter 10, the narrator pedals the strange, aromatic Broadwalk of the Bardo with a companion named Ken of the Travelers encountering third-eyed denizens, on his wobbly bardonic vehicle. Reflections on identity in a dreamlike waiting room.
The episode wanders through digressions about shoes and shoe-throwing, failed teaching jobs and janitorial work, and the slow, ambiguous lessons, with a side-eye to legendary Chinese physician Sun Simiao's Ghost Map, of patience, power, and self-discovery while awaiting admission to the Academy of the Dream Society.
Thursday Jan 22, 2026
Thursday Jan 22, 2026
A surreal, darkly comic episode following a narrator through dreamlike assassinations, Dream Society rites, and strange encounters—blending ritual, humor, and haunting imagery as the Academy’s proceedings unfold.
Monday Jan 26, 2026
Monday Jan 26, 2026
An off-kilter memoir episode about a summer in the ‘Ghost Palace’ where young Jake Isakson drifts into the Dream Society’s underworld—initiation rituals, petty crime, and the slow creep of possession reshape his life.
Set against family fractures and reckless strategies, the chapter maps a purgatorial detour that reveals how choices, karma, and lost bearings steer a life away from the beaten path.
Thursday Jan 29, 2026
Thursday Jan 29, 2026
Chapter 13, "Morpheus Deferred," follows Jacob's teenage journey from high-school wrestling and drug-fueled misadventures to uneasy commerce with the Dream Society. As he travels to Herefordshire College and confronts inner voices and a lingering sense of derealization, the narrative traces his loss of identity and the haunting pull of the Ghost Fortress. Interspersed is an interlude of the older Jake's most recent purgation.
The episode blends memories of friendships, adolescent rites, and encounters with mentors, highlighting themes of choice, agency, and the maps — literal and figurative — that guide and unmoor him.
Sunday Feb 08, 2026
Sunday Feb 08, 2026
An irreverent, autobiographical address to the Academy of the Dream Society: the narrator recounts decades of spinal surgeries, chronic pain, and the surprising atrophy of his gluteus maximus, and explores attempts at recovery from TENS therapy to further repairs.Woven through the medical narrative are playful metaphysical digressions, vivid local scenes like Gracie's Harbor, and reflections on culture, healing, and the strange economy of bodily loss and restoration.
Monday Feb 09, 2026
Monday Feb 09, 2026
This episode blends humorous and mystical reflections on "surviving apocalypse," offering improvised survival tips, warnings about enslavement to machines, and encounters with The League of Metaphysical Escape Artists.
Interwoven are personal memories of a friend’s death and memorial, vivid dream-visions, and teachings about the mechanism of reunion and rebirth—the ambrosial assembly of souls and bodies—culminating in a call to assemble and return.
Tuesday Feb 24, 2026
Tuesday Feb 24, 2026
Your wandering narrator drifts through surreal encounters—from a clarinet-playing Mustard Man and wetsuited healers to ritual bathhouses and crypts—while undergoing mystic aquatic therapies and searching for meaning in old songs and books.
Through visits to mikvahs, boneyards, and desert memories, he unravels connections to past mentors, a mysterious patron named Jake the Protector, and a plan for the Temple at the Edge of the Mind.