The Daily Valet. - 10/3/23, Tuesday
✔️ Get Into the Spirit
Tuesday, October 3rd Edition
By Cory Ohlendorf, Valet. Editor
What was your go-to breakfast cereal as a kid? I loved Cocoa Puffs but went through a serious Apple Jacks phase.
Today’s Big Story
Get Into the Spirit
Spooky Season's roaming retail store is now a huge business. You won't believe how many there are.
Do you smell that faint scent of latex and face paint? That's your local Spirit Halloween store, which no doubt recently opened up near you. Did you know that America's leading Halloween retailer is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year? Well, they are and they're opening more locations than ever. Of course, we know them as the seasonal costume shop that pops up in bankrupt big box stores (any closed retail outlet, actually) all around the country. And we know them as a cultural phenomenon—the memes are legendary. But what's the deal with Spirit Halloween? It turns out, this novelty shop is a huge business built on an impressive real estate operation that runs over 1,450 locations…and pulls in around $650 million a year (almost entirely between September and October).It all started back in 1983, when founder Joe Marver quickly grew the business from one pop-up store in the Castro Valley Mall in California to around 50 stores across the country. The stores were a spinoff of Marver's first retail venture, Spirit Women's Discount Apparel, and much of Spirit Halloween's initial inventory was a mix of regular women's clothing interspersed with wigs, makeup and superhero masks. It worked well enough to keep growing and by 1999, Marver sold the company to Spencer Gifts (which we all remember from our mall-going youth, right?). According to business writer Trung Phan, the explosion of Spirit's business “has coincided with the retail apocalypse—as more brick and mortar retailers go out of business, Spirit is waiting in the wings to scoop up real estate and feed America's insatiable Halloween appetite.”He says it's the perfect confluence of “a pioneering pop-up store model and the Halloween Industrial Complex.” And trust me, it is an industrial complex: The U.S. National Retail Federation says that consumers are projected to spend a record $12.2 billion on Halloween in 2023, including everything from costumes ($4.1 billion) and candy ($3.6 billion), to decorations ($3.4 billion) and black and orange greeting cards ($500 million).Now, there are more than 1,500 seasonal locations —meaning there are nearly as many Spirit Halloweens as there are Target stores in America. And while the pop-up shops make almost all its money in September and October, the business is successful because it's really a year-round operation. According to Vox, the Spirit team starts the search for next year's locations the day after Halloween. Reps say that no store is too large—or too small—they just want to get their goods in front of as many people as possible. And it's true, the more of these nomadic shops I see, the more I consider dressing up.
SEcret Sauce:
Spirit's specificity extends to the smallest detail: Marver says the fake blood selection ranges from “the stuff that coagulates” to “the thin runny blood, the semi-thick blood and the one that just lays there like a slug.”
A Second Summer?
A Rare October Heatwave covers much of the United States
This year's sizzling summer may officially be over, but now the U.S. is seeing the reemergence of summer-like heat for tens of millions from Minneapolis to Maine. Temperatures this week have already broken records—including a monthly high of 92°F in Minneapolis on Sunday, which forced the cancellation of the Twin Cities marathon due to safety concerns. Chicago is experiencing near-record high temperatures also, and cities like Fargo, Des Moines and Omaha will all see challenging forecasts in the days ahead.According to Axios, the cause of the heat is a strong ridge of high pressure that has formed out ahead of a plunge of cooler-than-average conditions across the Pacific Northwest. But thankfully, the warmup will be relatively fleeting. “Day by day, cooler air will be marching south and east into the Plains and Midwest, courtesy of a cold front that may set off some severe weather as it advances.”And it's not just here in the States. France, Germany and the U.K. all recorded their hottest-ever September last month. And now, similarly unseasonably warm weather is expected to continue into this month. Why? A heat dome is forecast to develop over Western Europe this week, with temperatures rising as high as 98°F in Portugal and Spain and 95°F in southwest France.
Dying People Experience ‘New Dimensions of Reality’
Scientists recorded brain waves to understand what happens to our consciousness when we die
New research on the brain activity of dying people has shed new light on the heightened dream-like state some individuals experience before they die. The multi-year studies seem to provide explanations for reports of people vividly recalling their lives, such as lucid visions, out-of-body sensations, a review of one's own life, and other “dimensions of reality.” Millions of people have reported near-death experiences since cardiopulmonary resuscitation, better known as CPR, was invented in 1960, Dr. Sam Parnia, an NYU Langone Health intensive care physician who has researched the phenomena for decades, told CNN. Electroencephalogram (EEG) brain signals captured from the patients revealed that episodes of heightened consciousness occurred up to an hour after cardiac arrest. Though most in the study were sadly not resuscitated by CPR, 53 patients were brought back to life. Of the survivors, 11 patients reported a sense of awareness during CPR and six reported a near-death experience.According to Vice, the findings suggest that the transition from life to death can trigger a state of “disinhibition in the brain that appears to facilitate lucid understanding of new dimensions of reality—including people's deeper consciousness—all memories, thoughts, intentions and actions towards others from a moral and ethical perspective.” And that could have profound implications for CPR research, not to mention end-of-life care and other fields.
Quoted:
“Most doctors are taught and believe that the brain dies after about 10 minutes of oxygen deprivation,” one doctor said. “One of the key points that comes out of this study is that is actually not true.”
A Wake Up Call
Cereal is on a steady decline in popularity, and there are multiple reasons for the downturn
For being known as “the most important meal of the day,” I know plenty of people who don't even eat breakfast. Others simply down a protein smoothie while I alternate between yogurt and oatmeal, depending on the season. But one thing is clear: Our breakfast habits are changing. And the shift might spell doom for dry cereal, once a staple of the American breakfast table.The Wall Street Journal reports that sales of breakfast cereal have been falling for quite some time. Although the category actually experienced an uptick in popularity during the pandemic, it was a spike that didn't last. As the world shifts away from the pandemic-induced lifestyle of never leaving the house, people are opting for more on-the-go breakfast foods such as granola bars, ready-made shakes, or even fast food breakfast sandwiches.Of course, for the past few years, young people have been saying that cereal—requiring a bowl and a spoon and milk—is simply too involved to mess with. Perhaps that's why we're seeing more just-add-water cereal popping up at convenience stores, positioning itself as a similarly portable option. Then again, market-share data from research firm Numerator found that stretched family budgets have also given new life to an old standby: private-label cereals. Those bottom-self bags started gaining share last year and jumped considerably in the first half of 2023. Could off-brand Apple Jacks end up saving the cereal industry? Let's hope so.
Meanwhile:
Don't panic, but Girl Scout cookies are getting more expensive this year.
In Other News
If found guilty, he'll be fined $250 million and banned from doing business in New York.
Have you heard about ...
Your October Reading List
Action-packed and full of thrills, these are the perfect books to crack open for “spooky season”
What are you reading these days? October has some really good books coming out, so let me make a few recommendations. They range from some wild historical fiction about a haunted reform school in the south to some classic series that have been revived for 2023.
By: Elizabeth HandOut: October 3
From award-winning author Elizabeth Hand comes the first-ever novel authorized to return to the world of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. This new tale is a scary story of isolation and longing—perfect for our modern times.
By: John Grisham Out: October 17
More than three decades after The Firm rocketed onto best-seller lists and made him a household name, Grisham revisits the novel’s indelible main characters, Mitch and Abby McDeere.
By: Matthew Batt Out: October 24
Fans of The Bear, pick up this book by an academic turned waiter. Batt peppers the story with humor as he relays the inner workings of restaurant life from the chefs and award-winning dishes to the clientele.
By: Tananarive Due Out: October 31
This eerie page-turner is set in Jim Crow Florida and follows a young man who’s sent to a segregated reform school where he deals not just with the horrors of racism and injustice, but also the ghosts of students who died there.
Shopping
What We’re Buying
Flat-front chinos
Wythe's chinos are made of a custom slub-twill fabric and cut with a straight-fit all the way through, similar to vintage military versions, and washed for softness and a lived-in look.
Get It:
Flat-front twill chino, $228 / $136.80 by Wythe
Morning Motto
Go for it.
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