1st of October

Today is October 1st, a day of gorgeous autumn sun. (Or so I hope, writing this at midnight.)

It's the National Holiday of the People's Republic of China, also of Cyprus, Nigeria and Tuvalu.

It's World Vegetarian Day, so if you want to turn vegetarian, why not start today!

In Austria, it's Coffee Day; coffee shops and cafés do all sorts of funny things to celebrate coffee (no use to me, because I never drink any coffee).

It's the birthday of ex-US-president, Nobel Peace prize laureate Jimmy Carter, also of celebrated actor Walter Matthau and the wonderful Julie Andrews.

It is also the death anniversary of Professor Arminio Rothstein, who passed away on October 1st 1994, after an unusually intense life of 67 years.
Having survived the hell of the Nazi regime (as the son of a Jewish father) he managed to continue in the playful and enterprising spirit of his childhood: as an art student, high school art teacher, caricaturist, musician (he played the guitar and the saxophone, and three dozen other instruments, too!) stage magician and puppetteer - which turned out to be his chief vocation.
Everybody who ever watched Austrian television during the 70s and 80s saw at least some of Arminio Rothstein's puppets! Some were portraits of prominent Austrians of the time, such as chancellor Bruno Kreisky or automobile racer Niki Lauda. Others were funny animals, circus acrobats, weird beings you would not know which name to put to... hundreds and maybe thousands of puppets, as small as a finger or as big as a zebra, all from the hands of one man. Yes, even today, they are there, they are alive and acting - proof that their creator lives on in them.
In 1967 he had founded the Arlequin theater, where his marionettes played classical drama (Brecht's Threepenny Opera, Molière's Malade Imaginaire...), but also pieces for children - most famous (and on TV every week!) was the Zirkus Habakuk, a circus consisting chiefly of hand puppets, constantly threatened by surreal dangers - most often caused by evil magician Tintifax - but always saved by the clever Kasperl and Habakuk the Clown - Rothstein's other self. (He also lent Kasperl his voice, even when they talked together, as they do in the picture! Yes, he was a ventriloquist too.)
He entertained two or maybe three generations. He made legions of budding weirdos, like myself, grow up yearning to be clowns, magicians and puppetteers. He even taught them the most necessary skills in his book Du wollen Clown spielen? ("You wanna play clown?", illustrated by himself, who else?). He was just so great.

By the way, today, there is a comparatively uninteresting, really quite marginal election in Austria today. All the media are full of it. How can they, with Arminio Rothstein's memory to be celebrated? He did more for us than any politician ever will.

Thanks a lot, Mr. Rothstein.