Daily Bafflements

• Americans are spending $5 billion on disposable costumes and candy this week, $350 million of which will go towards buying pet costumes, reports Kyle Chayka in his piece on the Halloween-Industrial Complex.

• Historians describe grass, leaves, bark, clay, and dirt as “famine foods” that European peasants once had to subsist on, which they “typically consumed in the form of cake, paste, soup or ashes.” Now, however you can find the same ingredients in the world’s most expensive and exclusive restaurants, writes Pierre Desrochers. (Via Arts & Letters Daily.)

• “Scabby the Rat,” the giant rat balloon that accompanies many labor protests, is protected speech.

• Apologies for the inside-baseball media news, which no one cares about except for media folks, but we liked this line from The Intercept’s explanation of First Look Media’s troubles: “A collision between the First Look executives, who by and large come from a highly structured Silicon Valley corporate environment, and the fiercely independent journalists who view corporate cultures and management-speak with disdain.”