After my post yesterday about Googling and being invited to a Sunday salon by Louise Bourgeois, who answers her own phone, don’t you know, I’ve gotten so much encouragement to fly out there and just show up that I’m wondering why the hell I sat here so long. Someone even went as far as to send me a link to a cheap tickets site. And hey, after the park opens in two weeks with her fountain in it, shouldn’t Seattle show up at Louise’s door?

Because I need to be here in early February to help a friend birth her baby (I know, I won’t be much help), I’m thinking late February. It’s a beautiful time to be in New York, actually, especially if you miss the punishing weather of your Northeast childhood the way I do (pain is the cleanser). So I’ll keep you posted.

Brooklyn artist Scott Andresen this morning sent me a link to an ArtNews piece from June describing the scene at Bourgeois’s four-story brownstone one Sunday at the appointed hour of 3:30. Naturally, it makes me want to go even more, especially before the woman already using a walker (well, she is 95; she was born on Christmas in 1911), well, you know.

When she enters the room, everybody recites in unison, “Holy mackerel!” What a reception. And then the conversation begins, each artist describing her own work and everybody responding until they cover topics as diverse as whether fat can be beautiful, the evil didacticism of vegans, the delicacy of jewelry, and the plumpers (heavy ladies) of porn. Bourgeois mostly keeps quiet, but not entirely.

Herkenhoff suggests that Hancock read something to Louise, and he recites verse from his recent show, “The Blestian Room,” explaining that the made-up word combines “blessed” and “Christian.”

“In the Blestian room, bonuses are given out early. In the Blestian room, missionaries are positioned. In the Blestian room, text is taxed.”

Bourgeois perks up, smiling. “Sex is what?”