Fascinating Rhythm for Unborn Child

A whole new meaning for the rhythm method is evolving at Cal State Dominguez Hills where Cecilia Riddell is readying a course in Music for the Unborn Child.

It has been established (or maybe it hasn’t) that babes in the womb, at least those in the third trimester of their mothers’ pregnancies, can hear not only Mom but Dad--if he gets close enough--and even music played within earshot of their mother.

“This is based on research,” musicologist Riddell says, “but it’s a little controversial; all the evidence isn’t in yet.”

Nevertheless, Riddell is preparing to jump fetus-first into the controversy. Beginning Saturday, she will teach classes for pregnant mothers at the CSDH Conservatory ((213) 516-3543), classes not only in “outside” music but in “showing mothers the ways to sing, hum and otherwise communicate with the child before it’s born. We’ll also be doing rocking, rubbing, gentle rhythm movements, all of which, we hope, may result in a better-adjusted child.”

Preferred fare for baby’s listening, as one might suspect, is “Baroque and Renaissance music of a particular tempo and dynamic level. Not so fast that it’s too stimulating (heavy metal has been known to result in angry kicks to the womb), but not so slow that mother and baby will nod off.”

“Bach,” Riddell says, “is supposed to be very good. Vivaldi and Corelli--you’d have to select the pieces. Mozart. The Pachebel Canon. . . .

“We’re not trying to produce musical geniuses,” Riddell hastens to add, “just to enhance bonding.”

And did she play music to her own unborn children? “Indeed I did. One son is now a music major. The other is studying history and the classics.”

Win a few, lose a few.

Frenchman Seeks Flag for the Planet

“When I was a boy in France,” says Luc Doublet, “I used to look out of my bedroom window at the moon, the stars, the Milky Way, and I would wonder the things boys always wonder.”

And more. Has any child besides Doublet ever wondered what a visitor from Out There would think if, stumbling upon planet Earth, he/she/it discovered hundreds of flags, each a symbol of a minuscule provincial piece of the God’s Green Footstool?

Nationalistic lunacy, Doublet thinks: “All those flags for a tiny little marble on the extremity of a minor galaxy?”

Doublet, now 42, went on to become a world authority on vexillology, the science of flags. He manufactures them, lectures on them, has written a world history--”L’Aventure des Drapeaux.” Still, he remains obsessed with the need for a single flag to identify and represent not a team, a military unit, a country, but Earth itself.

To that end, Doublet last week launched a world tour (in two vintage Citroens) in quest of a true “World Flag,” a design competition open to “anyone who cares.” “The final design will probably come from a child,” Doublet guesses, “or someone who places himself beyond the boundaries, who has a global view of who we are.”

San Francisco was chosen as starting point because it is “the City of Flags: The first United Nations flag was flown there; the first Olympic flag.”

Doublet’s modest caravan passed through Los Angeles last week en route to “China, Australia, Argentina, everywhere,” Doublet says. “Yes, I may a little dingue (nuts). But remember, the world belongs to the dingue .”

New in L.A. and Overwhelmed? Call if You Need Help

It’s almost a litany; as natural as exhaling. “Have a nice day,” we breathe out here. But do we really mean it? Marina Biallo, for one, has her doubts.

Biallo, along with Elia Gourgouris, is forming a “New in L.A.” support group under the aegis of the California Graduate Institute Counseling Service. “It is common for newcomers to L.A., whether from other U.S. cities or from other countries, to feel very lonely, lost, just plain overwhelmed,” says Biallo--who, as an immigrant from Moscow, ought to know.

“If America is the Land of Opportunity,” she says, “Los Angeles has to be the City of Opportunity. . . . In L.A., more than anywhere, a stranger often can find a group he can identify with. First, though, he has to know where to find it. That will be one of our goals.”

As for loneliness and outright confusion, “it’s a problem largely ignored by residents but very real, a problem compounded by language, logistics, and especially customs. I’m not picking on Californians; they’re welcoming enough, but often in a shallow way. I meet foreigners who ask, ‘Why are these people always smiling at you when they really don’t care?’They want to know why we ask ‘How are you?’ and if they actually tell us, we’re shocked.”

These and the far more serious issues of employment, housing, transportation, “a thousand problems that just don’t occur to residents” will be addressed at the Center.

Newcomers in distress, then, are welcome to call Marina or Elia at (213) 208-3120. And hey, have a nice day!