New Delhi, Sept. 21 -- I grew up with LPs that crackled before the music began, cassette tapes that hissed between songs, and cars with simple mechanical locks you could coax open and hotwire to start without a key.

Junk food was a milkshake made with milk and fresh fruit and burgers came off a griddle rather than an assembly line, messy to eat and satisfyingly meaty. Movie stars were giant figures on 70mm screens, and when a movie star could dance, it was raw rhythm and footwork.

I recently breezed through West Hollywood, a city I'd known mostly through music and movies, and somewhere between the Sunset Strip, a recording studio, a collection of analogue automobiles, and a serendipitous hotel lobby encounter, I wandered right back into...