Marcel Marceau character / FRI 8-28-20 / Plot point in rom-com / Dish that might be garnished with nori negi / Gaelic name for Scotland / Secret admirer of Lily Potter in Harry Potter universe / First #1 hit for Spice Girls

Constructor: Kate Hawkins

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (low 7s)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: ISO (32A: Camera film speed inits.) —

Film speed is the measure of a photographic film's sensitivity to light, determined by sensitometry and measured on various numerical scales, the most recent being the ISO system. A closely related ISO system is used to describe the relationship between exposure and output image lightness in digital cameras. [...] The ASA and DIN film speed standards have been combined into the ISO standards since 1974. // The current International Standard for measuring the speed of colour negative film is ISO 5800:2001 (first published in 1979, revised in November 1987) from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Related standards ISO 6:1993 (first published in 1974) and ISO 2240:2003 (first published in July 1982, revised in September 1994 and corrected in October 2003) define scales for speeds of black-and-white negative film and colour reversal film, respectively. // The determination of ISO speeds with digital still-cameras is described in ISO 12232:2019 (first published in August 1998, revised in April 2006, corrected in October 2006 and again revised in February 2019). // The ISO system defines both an arithmetic and a logarithmic scale. The arithmetic ISO scale corresponds to the arithmetic ASA system, where a doubling of film sensitivity is represented by a doubling of the numerical film speed value. In the logarithmic ISO scale, which corresponds to the DIN scale, adding 3° to the numerical value constitutes a doubling of sensitivity. For example, a film rated ISO 200/24° is twice as sensitive as one rated ISO 100/21°. // Commonly, the logarithmic speed is omitted; for example, "ISO 100" denotes "ISO 100/21°", while logarithmic ISO speeds are written as "ISO 21°" as per the standard. (wikipedia)

If I just look at this grid as a finished object, it seems fine. It's pretty solid, and it's got little moments of currency and up-to-date-ness. It's got no real marquee answers beyond the central PYRAMID SCHEME, so nothing really pops or sizzles, but it's alright. And yet solving it was not that fun. I never know how much the editor's cluing voice is just mucking things up, but it just felt like there was a layer of muck and dust and quaintness over a lot of the cluing. Cluing turned SKINNY into an olde-timey word (13D: Inside dope). Cluing on GOLD TEETH just felt ... hmm ... labored (46A: Pearly whites that aren't white). It's basically saying "teeth that aren't white," which tells me nothing. Why would anyone have GOLD TEETH? Once you've answered that question, maybe incorporate *that* into your clue, instead of leaving us with this overly literal dead weight (also, "pearly whites," another olde-timey expression). Cluing on PARROT was super-technical and bizarre (44D: Oscine : songbird :: psittacine : ___). I'm so tired of hair being clued as MOP. Again, for some reason, it just feels 50 years old (weren't the Beatles known as "mop-tops" or something like that?). But then some of the issues I had were with the fill itself. Like ... BIP?! (21D: Marcel Marceau character) Yeeeeesh. No one has thought of Marcel Marceau in 40+ years, and though I know I've seen BIP in xwords before, I drew a total blank there. Younger solvers will have no clue, none, and no way to have a clue, as mime lore has not been maintained as far as I can tell. And SHOE PRINT ... while I'm sure that that is a thing, even if the print were left "in the dust" by a shoe, most humans would still call it a "footprint," so ... just weird (28A: One might be left in the dust). Grid really does seem solid enough, overall, but this lacked the Zing I love in a good Friday, and then also it was hard in unrewarding ways, so ... so-so, I guess.