the town that irony forgot

In town to see Gillian Welch, who writes old-time bluegrass songs without putting them in quotation marks, I ate at Falafel of Santa Cruz. "Where can I find some napkins," I asked after a few seconds of searching around. "Oh yeah," said the college student behind the counter, "they're right here where nobody can find them," in the napkin dispenser at eye level four inches from my face. Not sarcastic, not implying that they should be easy to find, just noting an observed anomaly of optics: The napkins, there, are invisible to humans. "We got to let the music play," sang the radio. Someone in a paisley skirt opened the door.