L TRAIN NOTWORK // A Pirate WiFi Network For Your Morning Commute

If you're riding the L Train between 8am and 10am any day this week, you might want to whip out your smartphone or another device with wifi capabilities. During those hours, if you're riding between Morgan Avenue and 8th Avenue, you'll be able to connect to the "L Train Notwork," a pirate wi-fi intranet that's being hosted by the creative collective WeMakeCoolSh.it.

The Notwork will include a variety of different features and content, including a live chat room/dating site, curated content from local authors, poets and visual artists, news feeds from popular websites and "a few other surprises."

3rd Ward writing teacher Robin Grearson and her fellow 1441 member Dolan Morgan will be curating poetry and prose by local writers, with new pieces appearing on the Notwork Monday through Friday.

"We like to encourage strangers to talk to each other and this seemed like a great way to do it," say the Matthew McGregor-Mento and Mark Krawczuk of WeMakeCoolSh.it. "When people ride the train during rush hour they are forced to be so close to each other but they rarely interact with each other. We wanted to give people something to talk about."

WeMakeCoolSh.it didn't get any special permission for the project, as they won't be breaking any rules. The battery-powered webserves used to create the Notwork's wi-fi hotspots will be carried onto the train and never left unattended, and everyone involved will have project descriptions to hand out to anyone who is curious. They will also be making all of the project's code available on the open source site Github so that others can experiment with their own pirate networks.

--John Ruscher

MEMBER PURSUITS // This Sunday: Robin Grearson Reads With Her 1441 Writers Collective in Bushwick

This Sunday, October 2, 3rd Ward member Robin Grearson (who curated an awesome Bushwick Open Studios exhibition back in June) will be reading with her writers' collective, 1441, at The Bodega (24 St. Nicholas Ave) in Bushwick from 7-10pm. Select 2-for-1 drafts will be available, along with lots of literary goodness. We spoke with Grearson about 1441 and Sunday night's event.

1441 came together organically, as the group's members were all hunting for a local workshop when they found each other. "I didn't know of any, so I was thinking about trying to form one," Grearson says. "And then I ran into Mike Lala on New Year's Day at Cafe Orwell, and he told me he and a group of writers he knew wanted to do the same. So earlier this year, we all started meeting regularly, and that was how 1441 began."

"We began as a group of writers who got together to workshop each other's writing, so that is a strong element of what 1441 is about," she says. "We meet almost every week to discuss one member's work at length. We're still working out our goals as a collective. For instance, we produced a handmade journal earlier this year as a group, and we've been exchanging ideas about publishing again in the future."

In addition to Grearson and Lala, 1441 is comprised of Allyson Paty, Dolan Morgan, Eric Nelson, Joel Marino, Justin Richards and Matt Zingg. Lala and Eric Nelson are also the founders the Fireside Follies, a reading and arts series at Brooklyn Fire Proof that has featured guests such as poet Eileen Myles, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Nick Zinner and L Magazine editor Jonny Diamond.

Sunday night's event marks the seventh edition of The Bodega's monthly storytelling series, and in addition to all of 1441's members, five others will be reading as well: Mary Pat Kane, Emily Epstein, Natalie Jacobs, Becky Roth, and Erik Leavitt. "I'm looking forward to hearing their work," Grearson says. She also told us she'll be trying something new. "Usually I read essays, but Sunday I'm doing something a little different and reading two poems."

In addition to Sunday's reading, the next Fireside Follies event takes place on October 15, and 1441 will be hosting a book swap at the Pine Box Rock Shop on November 5, with surplus books benefiting Books Through Bars.

Grearson will also be reading at the Soda Series at the Soda Bar in Prospect Heights on November 9. She's also teaching a 3rd Ward class, Learn to Love Your Artist Statement (or at least make friends), starting in early November.

-- John Ruscher