The composer Morton Feldman told this story about Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
The architect is teaching a class. The students are working on their projects while he walks about the room looking critiquing and talking about whatever subjects come to&.mind. All the students have electric pencil sharpeners on their desks. Mies van der Rohe's delivery is punctuated by the grinding of pencils to sawdust.
He stops the class, gets everyone's attention. He takes a penknife out of his pocket and beg.ins to&sharpen a pencil by hand.
"I just had an idea," he says..