I finally got around to watching the first episode of this season’s Sopranos the other night, and my jaw dropped upon realizing they set the opening montage to Material’s “Seven Souls,” the title track from a Bill Laswell-produced project featuring William S. Burroughs on vocals. How amazingly cool is that? I actually pulled that disc out of my collection last month and listened to it for the first time in two or three years, during a mini-Burroughs bender instigated by my March 25 entry. I had no idea it was getting air on HBO around the same time . . .

The show appears to be as good as ever. One of my best friends, Travers, once told me he’d watched a couple of episodes and didn’t like it. Just a pale retread of mafia depictions past, he thought, full of old wiseguy stereotypes. I tried to tell him that part of the genius of The Sopranos is that all the tropes and stereotypes are there, true, but if you watch the show for any length of time you see them all twisted like pretzels. There are better shows out there — on HBO, even (check out The Wire sometime) — but still, TV doesn’t get a whole lot better than The Sopranos. Time for me to watch more.