This might not be the longest of reads, but it is not one you will regret.
Former INDY managing editor Eric Ginsburg penned this gem of a piece this week for Eater Carolinas, delving into a tale of two bathrooms: Lilac and Mustard.
You’ll find both of them at the Accordion Club, a beloved Geer Street haunt where, if memory serves, you can buy a hot dog and forget the rest of your night (it occasionally attracts an INDY staffer or two). The Lilac Bathroom is lushly stickered and graffitied, inviting in its balanced abstraction. The mustard bathroom is the hell demon version. It has a chain-link toilet paper holder. User discretion advised (it was also out of service for a while).
Entering either is like stepping into a portal of chaos and to a modern mind, no matter how sloshed, it only takes a few seconds to click: what a great place for a selfie.
So it came that these iconic sets of lavatories begot a selfie war on Instagram between two accounts: @lilac_selfie_attack and @mustard_selfie_attack. Dozens of patrons, drunk and old, have documented what appear to be killer nights in marked-up mirrors or selfie-style on the john.
It’s trashy and delightful and just so idiosyncratically Durham.
Better yet, as Ginsburg writes:
Its ability to embody the city’s gritty, artistic, come-as-you-are spirit is on full display with the battling bathrooms. Both Mustard and Lilac’s posts are infused with a decidedly punk attitude, with an air of almost defiant revelry saturating the Lilac account in particular.
Born from a genuine affection for the bar and run as fan accounts rather than self-promotional hack jobs, the sibling selfie attacks show the unglamorous but welcoming neighborhood bar at its best.
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Follow Senior Staff Writer Leigh Tauss on Twitter or send an email to ltauss@indyweek.com.
