March 11, 2010, Filed Under: Theatre + Performing ArtsJohn Cage Uncaged John Cage pushed classical music’s limits. He stuck screws and weather stripping into pianos, composed a silent piece, and chose notes at random based on ancient Chinese divination. The Ransom Center holds Cage correspondence in several different collections. These letters reveal Cage’s early efforts to establish a center for experimental… read more
December 3, 2009, Filed Under: Books + Manuscripts, Exhibitions + EventsFrom the Galleries: Tycho Brahe’s "Astronomiae instauratae mechanica" Before the telescope was invented, 16th-century Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe built his own instruments to measure star and planetary positions with accuracy up to one arcminute. Brahe described these home-made instruments in his 1602 book, Astronomiae instauratae mechanica, the first edition of which is on display in the Ransom Center’s… read more
November 19, 2009, Filed Under: Books + Manuscripts, Exhibitions + EventsCassini’s moon map Before “Where’s Waldo?” there was the “moon maiden,” a shadowy figure hiding in the Ransom Center’s current exhibition, Other Worlds: Rare Astronomical Works. One of the exhibition’s highlights is a first edition map of the moon rendered by Giovanni Domenico Cassini from 1679, the rarest edition of the first published… read more
