Cala Boca Galvao
…So all day on Friday, Brazilians were posting the shut-up comment. Inevitably, others asked what the words meant. That was when the real mischief began. At 2 a.m. on Saturday, a Brazilian wrote in English that it was a bird. (In fact, the Portuguese word for hawk, “gavií£o,” is close to Galví£o.) An online petition to save the bird was published; a flier was circulated promising 10-cent donations for each post. The Brazilian author Paulo Coelho wrote on Twitter: “CALA BOCA GALVíƒO is the Brazilian version of a homeopathic remedy SILENTIUM GALVANUS.”
By dawn Saturday, Fernando Motolese, a comedian and audiovisual producer in Sí£o Paolo, Brazil, had started work on his one-minute video. He recruited a British actor, Stewart Clapp, to do the voice-over. “It took about 32 hours to make, without sleep,” Mr. Motolese said by phone on Tuesday. The video rallies support for a Brazilian scientist who has devised a special birdhouse to protect the few remaining Galví£os.
The video, posted Sunday night on a Brazilian humor blog and also YouTube, has been viewed a half-million times. By Tuesday evening, “Cala Boca Galví£o” remained the leading Twitter subject in the world.
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