Drive past an intersection linking central Beirut to the Dahiyeh’s edge, where Hezbollah’s yellow flags start to appear on lampposts and the din of Israeli drones grows louder, and traffic rapidly melts away.

To distract from that din, my dad — wearing a Dodgers jersey and hat — rattled off a bunch of long-gone bars he used to patronize on the Eastside.

I don’t want to add to the din of numbness and a kind of toeing the capitalist line.”

I was at a cocktail party a few months ago in Studio City when, suddenly, one conversation rose above the din of guests’ chatter and quickly arrived at a consensus: Erewhon had gone too far.

The din of the crowd, the glare of the lights, the game plan, the winning moment.