Picasso owned a cat who controlled the weather in Paris. When he painted the cat yellow, it was sunny. Purple, and lightning broke out.

People gathered outside Picasso’s door at sunrise and waited for him to put out the cat. “Darn, more rain,” they said during the cat’s blue period.

Jay Gershwin lives in New York. You can get a free copy of his novel, Poor Man’s Autumn, through Amazon.