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Show Or you can play hearts "KUEDsiates small town poi A lot of small-town and rural U ah ,s captured on video tape in KUED's "Festival," which wi I a, Tuesday at 9:30 p.m. If you can take 45 minutes of small-town and rural Utah, see it. Otherwise play hearts. Larry Roberts' production, in cooperation with the Utah Travel Council, depicts the celebrations, festivals, and rodeos held across the state every summer. With mixed success "Festival" tries to give the viewer the feeling of a spectator; but at any rate the flavor of non-Salt Lake Utah is somehow recorded. Superficially it's just a documentary on county fairs, the Ute Stampede, the Freedom Festival, the Days of '47, Strawberry Days and the like. We see bands, floats! bucking horses, diving mules, merry-go-rounds, horse races, and thousands of people, from enthusiastic kids to cowboys to apple-pie-beautiful pageant queens to tired and laconic old women. It's a panorama, a spectacle, an extravaganza. We hear the National Anthem, calliopes, the Phantom jets of the Blue Angels, and Covernor Rampto. the virtues of the industrious folk of There is another level, however (wha( tended or not), and to me "Festival" 1 what, and how much, people will J Banality permeates the events shown'' How much overblown rhetoric on patrioti:-' listened to without some deadening off EE How long can we listen to the John Ph wd version of "Ceorgy Girl" as played bytf.3H Crove High School Marching Band? ICL It tells a lot about people. Judging fror mn ordinary folk are attracted to speed and imt for excitement, and I suppose in mam ' reveals a dark side to our natures. But, ir very distinctly that people have a veryi-ek need for pomp, for pageantry, in their As a survey of Utah's response to thii'e pageantry, "Festival" does a good jedit examination of human nature, it does t -Jrs( |