Saturday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: October 6, 2018

My time: 16:08.

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Lewis Dean Hyatt can be forgiving for having an inflated sense of SELF-IMPORTANCE after creating this puzzle, with what must have been quite a LABOR INTENSIVE effort.  Look at this fill: OREO THIN, THAT'S THE SPIRIT, EVIL INTENTIONS, EXCAVATES, and more.

The first comedian to appear on the cover of "Time" was Mort SAHL in 1960.  Sahl pioneered a style of social satire which pokes fun at political and current event topics using improvised monologues and only a newspaper as a prop.

The singer with the 2017 #1 R&B album is... SZA??  What the hell is that?  I put *SIA at first.  I'm so out of touch, it's a wonder I have fingers.

For "time for me to shine," I had *I'M UP, but it's I'M ON.  For "buncha" I put *LOTSA but it's LOTTA.

The largest sesamoid bone in the body is the KNEECAP.  What the hell is a sesamoid bone?  It is a bone embedded within a tendon or a muscle.  The name is is derived from the Latin word sesamum ("sesame seed"), due to the small size of most sesamoids.

ARCO has come up before as a gas station, but today it's a musical term meaning the player should return to bowing after playing pizzicato.

I knew that mahi-mahi is also called dolphinfish and other names, but I forgot about DORADO.

Here's a new thing for me.  I thought HEARTS AND MINDS was a phrase dating from the Iraq War, but it turns out it was appropriated (unwisely, perhaps) from a quote by LBJ on the Vietnam War.  There was a 1974 documentary on the Vietnam War bearing this title.

"Galvanized, chemically" is ZINCED.  That looks so odd I was sure it was wrong.

I also had misgivings about SLICED AND DICED for "broke down for careful analysis."  That is one of the dictionary definitions, but I have always thought of it as just hacking something up, even if figuratively, but without regard to figuring it out.

For "assembly line pioneer" I put *FORD but it's our old sparring buddy, Ransom Eli OLDS.

Lionel Ritchie has a song called "You ARE."  Never heard of it.  It's pretty glossy AOR stuff.

DREXEL University, near Penn, came up on April 9, but I forgot all about it.

Clever clues: "Make rent" is TATTER.  "R.E.M. show?" is DREAM.  "It made a big splash in 2001" is MIR.  "What isn't legal for copying" is LTR --- I guess letter size isn't legal size.  That's not so much clever as it is obscure.  "Like some pans" is SCATHING.

I really enjoyed this one!  Great clues, impressive fill, not too difficult.  The chance to challenge myself with quality crosswords like these is what DRIVES me onward.