from the LA Times via Yahoo! News
Why are skywriting messages all over L.A. lately? We have answers
by Ronald D. White
On a lightly breezy afternoon, Carlos Shihady and Maram Shehada stood together at the Point Reyes Lighthouse, where the rocky land juts a finger out into the Pacific, and watched “Carlos ❤️ Maram 12 17 2022” appear in the sky.
It was a grand save-the-wedding-date gesture to share with family and friends via social media, marking a high point in a harrowing journey for the couple, long separated by war and pandemic.
With both finally in America together, it had taken more than a month of planning to get to this moment: a squadron of airplanes, so high they couldn’t be seen, forming words with computer-choreographed puffs of vaporized liquid that could be seen for miles.
“The clouds parted in time and I think I was just standing there with her and saying, ‘Oh, my God, look at the writing,'” Shihady said. “It was a special moment for us to announce this date because of all that we went through, you know, with COVID, with Syria.”
A full-on craze in the early days of aeronautics, skywriting faded over the decades. The messages didn’t have the staying power of other forms of advertising, blowing away in the wind, and, at best, were preserved on low-resolution photographs and video that were rarely shared with anyone except immediate friends and family.
But social media and our insatiable promotional hunger have pushed the throttle on the old-timey art form.