It's worth noting that the person behind it is a humorist and cartoonist, and while I expect that he'll actually sharpen a pencil if you pay him, it is almost c

It's worth noting that the person behind it is a humorist and cartoonist, and while I expect that he'll actually sharpen a pencil if you pay him, it is almost certainly not meant to be taken as a serious method of pencil sharpening. I expect the significant increases in price after the service's inception—over an order of magnitude—reflect this. The service is connected with a book that a New Yorker review suggests is classified as humor by its publisher out of a lack of "avant-garde reference" sections in bookstores.