Mariana Dale
explores and explains the forces that shape how and what kids learn from kindergarten to high school.
Published September 19, 2025 5:00 AM
Nib Geebles calendars feature a variety of under-the-radar L.A. landmarks.
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Mariana Dale
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LAist
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Topline:
For the past 40 years, artist Gordon Henderson, who goes by the pen name Nib Geebles, has made a calendar with a cult following. The most recent editions capture Los Angeles’ “unknown landmarks.”
The backstory: Henderson made the first calendar in 1985 as a last-minute Christmas gift for his then-girlfriend. “It fell off the wall, and by March of that year, it was gone and the relationship was on the rocks,” Henderson said. “But you know, the next year, I thought, 'Well, I have to do this again.'”
A familiar voice: Henderson also is the voice of many of the underwriting spots heard on LAist 89.3 FM (“Support comes from …”). He’s worked here since 2006 and now is our production and promotions manager.
Unknown landmarks: Henderson’s life partner and fellow artist Abira Ali has collaborated on the most recent iterations of the calendar. Their paintings feature quirky neighborhood landmarks and scores of local business from taco shops to liquor stores. “They're ephemeral,” Henderson said. “I've always been interested in change and ... the nature of life being so temporary.”
See the art: Henderson’s latest show, Parade of Mortals, is on display at MorYork in Highland Park. You can also pick up the 2026 calendar there.
Keep reading ... for photos of the work and details about two upcoming special events.
Artist Gordon Henderson, who goes by the pen name Nib Geebles, has made a calendar with a cult following for 40 years.
The most recent editions capture Los Angeles’ “unknown landmarks.” Think quirky neighborhood monuments like the Chicken Boy statue in Highland Park and mom-and-pop taco shops, mechanics and liquor stores.
Henderson made the first calendar in 1985 as a last-minute Christmas gift for his then-girlfriend.
“It fell off the wall and it was lost, and by March of that year, it was gone and the relationship was on the rocks,” Henderson says. “But you know, the next year, I thought, 'Well, I have to do this again.'”
Gordon Henderson's latest show is partly a retrospective of 40 years of calendar-making. "Parade of Mortals" is on display at MorYork in Highland Park through Sept. 28.
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Mariana Dale
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LAist
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The calendars featured his predominantly pen-and-ink drawings, and every year had a different theme. They’ve included vacation, metamorphosis and glamour.
The calendars mark familiar holidays, but also ones of Henderson’s own invention.
They’ve included:
Rethink your cherished stereotypes (Jan. 12)
Feast of Paranoid rumination (April 26) — “That's not one that I encourage people to celebrate,” he says. “But we all do once in a while, whether we want to or not.”
Our world is upside down but there’s still time for romance (Sept. 11)
“You can have it all if you're willing to settle for less,” on Feb. 28 is one of his favorites.
“It's sort of philosophical in a way,” Henderson says. “You can accept your situation and realize that it's pretty good.”
Not everyone has loved the holidays. A friend once wrote him a letter aghast that he included “Insult Someone You Love Day.”
“She said, ‘I don't need someone to tell me when to insult my loved ones, and I think I would like a calendar more like the Ansel Adams calendar,’” he recalls.
The show's eponymous artwork, "Parade of Mortals." "It's a sassy skeleton," Henderson says. "It's like we will all shuffle off this mortal coil, but I will have the last laugh."
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Gordon Henderson
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"Arrested Poets Levitate." "I particularly like poets as ... a form of protest," Henderson says. "I like the idea of them putting forth rational ideas and peaceably."
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Gordon Henderson
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Henderson, with production help from his life partner Abira Ali, was producing hundreds each year. For a spell, each shrink-wrapped calendar included a trinket such as a packet of mayonnaise or baggie of dirt.
In 2020, Henderson decided he was done. The 2021 calendar included the message:
“This is the 35th and final edition. Thank you for being part of the experience. Without you, there would be no point in making the calendars.”
He received about 50 messages in protest; many of them mentioned the calendar had become part of their holiday tradition.
“It was kind of an embarrassing moment for me,” Henderson says. “I'd thrown a tantrum. I'm gonna hold my breath here until I pass out. And then you pass out and you realize how everyone's around you and you realize that people love you.”
From 2022 on, Ali, who’s also an artist, helped breathe new life into the project and became the calendar’s co-creator.
The pair adopted the unknown landmarks theme. The paintings are drawn from their walks through L.A. neighborhoods.
Henderson and Ali made 1,200 copies of the latest Nib Geebles calendar.
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Gordon Henderson and Abira Ali
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They’ve documented scores of local businesses. Some are now gone. Altadena restaurant Fox's was in the 2025 calendar. The Eaton Fire destroyed the longstanding diner.
“The buildings … they're ephemeral,” Henderson says. “I've always been interested in change and the nature of life being so temporary.”
The calendars are, by nature, generally only useful for one year.
“Maybe that's … part of the drive behind making them year after year to keep it going because they die every year,” Henderson says.
Though Henderson recently realized his limited stock of 2017 Hansel and Gretel-themed calendars will work for 2026 — all the dates align.
Hours: Saturday and Sunday, noon to 6 p.m. Sept. 27 and 28, noon to 6 p.m.
Special events:
Sept. 20, 4 p.m.: The premiere of “Nib is My Pen Name," a short film on the history of the calendar by Robert Caruso.
Sept. 28, 7 p.m.: Closing event and Henderson’s presentation on the calendar’s history.
Pro-tip: The 2026 calendars also will be on sale at the gallery, along with T-shirts.
Listen
4:09
This local artist’s calendars capture a disappearing Los Angeles
Hear from the artist
LAist talked to Henderson about his alter ego, his career and his latest show at MorYork, which features art from past calendars. Henderson also is the voice of many of the underwriting spots heard on LAist 89.3 FM (“Support comes from …”). He’s worked here since 2006 and now is our production and promotions manager.
These excerpts from our conversation are edited lightly for length and clarity.
LAist: How did Nib Geebles come to be?
Henderson: A lot of people have a silly side and a rational side. Mine has a name. I've fed that character, that persona or alter ego.
My other name, Gordon Henderson, that part of me goes to work and makes sure that I pay the LADWP bill and does all the kinds of polite things. Then the other side, which is less polite — but more free — that side is sort of contained.
What’s the theme of your latest show, “Parade of Mortals”?
I knew it was going to be a tie-in to the 40-year calendar retrospective, but then different things happened. One was losing my mom in December, and then the fires happened in January. Also this year has been a terrible year of dread for so many people.
Art making has always been a way that I have kept dread at bay. It gives you balance. You put artwork into the world, and that gives people pleasure and it helps them relax.
So I was thinking about all the different artwork I had done that deals specifically with handling crisis. So that's predominantly what I chose to hang in this show is work that confronts crisis.
How did you start making art?
I didn't really officially declare myself as an artist until I was 16. I was at a religious school, a Quaker school, and I wasn't thriving in that environment. But I did like the Bible class and I liked the Bible teacher who was a guy who I considered a mystic, and his name was Bill.
Bill told us that he told the class that one of his former students had rewritten the Bible and Bill had read the Bible and thought it was terrible.
And I was kind of inspired by that. Not so much that he had rewritten the Bible but that he had taken on this thing that was way bigger than he was, and he'd failed miserably at it.
It’s like Dante. I liked that idea. So I thought, ‘Well, I could do that, and it would be even worse.’
What I realized is this was a really good fit to write in journals and draw and create my own reality. And I'm really still continuing on that mission. I needed a mission and that was my mission.
You’ve said that as a teenager you smoked a lot of pot and felt like a “young person adrift.”
I was a teenage wise guy. I'd always been a misfit. I was always like 2 to 12 inches taller than every other kid that was around.
I always sort of stuck out.
I was a young person adrift, and there are a lot of young people adrift right now, and they don't have something that they can really hold onto.
I'm a mature person now and I have lived a sober life. I'm really happy with that because I was able to have a family and a really good job and career. What made that possible was that I made that decision to make artwork and that imagination was gonna set me free.
The fire started on a cargo ship at the Port of L.A. started Friday evening.
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Courtesy CBS LA
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Topline:
A fire broke out Friday evening on a cargo ship docked at the Port of Los Angeles. At one point, more than 180 firefighters were battling the fire.
Why it matters: Hazardous materials were in some of the cargo bays, according to LAFD captain Adam VenGerpen.
Injuries: Authorities say all crew members on the ship are accounted for with no injuries reported.
Read on ... for the latest updates.
Zero percent containment — that's the word from the LA Fire Department early Saturday morning for the fire that broke out Friday evening on a cargo ship docked at the Port of Los Angeles.
But there are positive news.
LAFD captain Adam VenGerpen told LAist that the cargo ship — "ONE Henry Hudson" — has been pulled out to open water, less than a mile from the port, where fireboats are working to contain the blaze.
In addition, a shelter-in-place order for residents in San Pedro and Wilmington has been lifted, according to VenGerpen.
Authorities say all crew members on the ship are accounted for with no injuries reported.
At one point, more than 180 firefighters were fighting the fire, which was reported at 6:38 p.m. by crew onboard as an "electrical fire" that started below deck.
A number of cargo bays contained some hazardous materials, VenGerpen said.
He said a number of containers are believed to be damaged — but the exact number won't be available until the fire is fully contained.
"Many of these cargo containers are stacked one on top of another, and they were not able to get cranes in there to start removing these," he said.
The derelict shopping center has a remarkable past
Cato Hernández
has scoured through tons of archives to understand how our region became the way it is today.
Published November 22, 2025 5:00 AM
Valley Plaza Surplus when it opened in 1957. The store used to be located at 6330 Laurel Canyon Blvd.
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Valley Times Collection/Los Angeles Public Library
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Topline:
Valley Plaza in North Hollywood has been neglected for years. As some buildings are getting demolished, we look into its legendary past and why it fell from grace.
How it began: When Valley Plaza opened in 1951, it was right when the shopping experience was changing. The developer behind the center, Bob Symonds, created a new masterplan of specially picked stores in an area that prioritized freeway access and lots of parking.
Why it was unique: Back in those days, his ideas were novel. Instead of going to individual places, customers could visit a huge range of stores at one center, including the largest Sears at the time. It became one of the most important shopping centers on the West Coast because of its design, which fueled the local economy.
Read on…. to learn more about Angelenos’ personal memories with the space.
Demolition is underway in parts of Valley Plaza, a shopping center in North Hollywood. The razing comes after years of vacancy and a vote to declare six of its dilapidated buildings a public nuisance. But did you know that this was once one of the most important shopping centers on the West Coast?
Valley Plaza may look like an ordinary strip mall that kicked the can due to the rise of online retail, but it’s actually a shell of what it once was. We’ll explore its past and wax nostalgic about its heyday with tales from Angelenos.
The novelty of Valley Plaza
The plaza first opened in 1951 at the corner of Laurel Canyon and Victory boulevards, and with it, the San Fernando Valley began a new era. Post-war, the suburbs were rapidly growing, and this center was right in the middle of all the action.
The shopping experience we know today — where you can go to one large location and find every store you need — was just starting to take shape. When developer Bob Symonds designed Valley Plaza as an open-air shopping center, it was believed to be one of the first of its kind in the United States, especially one to do so at such a scale.
His “ultra-modern” plaza got national attention for a few reasons. For one, Symonds is credited as a pioneer in Southern California for recognizing the potential of putting retail hubs next to freeways. Most developers still focused on boulevards. He also put hundreds of parking spots in front of the mall, rather than in the back, which was the normal practice. The “mammoth” shopping area, as it was hailed, was ultimately special because it brought together a huge range of stores.
I put out a call on social media for people to send me their memories.
“I remember how excited we were to have real stores near us,” wrote Pat DeCurtins, who lived in North Hollywood between the ‘40s and ‘60s. “We no longer had to order all our clothes from Spiegels Catalogue. We could buy clothes in a REAL store.”
A flooded intersection next to Valley Plaza in 1962.
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Gordon Dean
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Valley Times Collection/Los Angeles Public Library
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One of those was Sears, which opened its largest location at the time in the U.S. at Valley Plaza (it apparently smelled like popcorn, too). Sears joining was the key to getting other companies onboard. Thrifty also opened a store, signing the longest lease in its history at the time for 25 years.
Symonds was known for courting big companies and curating the plaza’s stores to blend the essential, mundane and desirable. It had mom-and-pop shops, innovative self-service grocery stores, a theater, an ice skating rink and restaurants like the Hawaiian spot Kel Luau.
“My little son and I would go to this tropical style restaurant in Valley Plaza mall across from the ice skating arena,” wrote Cassandra Adams. “We would have blue drinks from a glass shell with two long straws. They would put a sugar cube floating on top and light it on fire. It was really fun!”
Valley Plaza’s downward spiral
Valley Plaza was a roaring success for a while. It brought in $100 million in annual sales in its first five years and was a big employment boost for the community. The plaza would later expand to cover more than 1 million square feet, ranking it as one of the largest in the nation.
A group of store managers pose in front of new Valley Plaza signage with developer Bob Symonds and honorary Valley Plaza mayor Anita Gordon in April 1957.
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Valley Times Collection/Los Angeles Public Library
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It even had the tallest building in the San Fernando Valley with the Los Angeles Federal Savings and Loan Tower, now known as Valley Plaza Tower. Built in 1960, the 165-foot-tall building was one of the first skyscrapers constructed after the repeal of the city of L.A.’s building height limit a few years prior.
In the decades after, Valley Plaza slowly declined. The area’s demographics shifted, meaning shopping habits changed, and vacant spots in the center weren’t replaced with similar quality stores. The plaza’s future was also hard to plan because it had dozens of owners at one point, ranging from corporations to a 90-year-old widow, according to UCLA research.
But one event may have sealed its fate: the Northridge Earthquake of 1994. According to an L.A. City Council motion, many of the buildings were red-tagged, and tenants who didn’t have the capital for repairs got evicted.
Since then, Valley Plaza has been a thorn in L.A.’s side. While some of it has been redeveloped, numerous plans for the center have failed. Owners haven’t fixed the broken-down lots. L.A. leaders even explored the possibility of using eminent domain to take it over.
It’s not known yet what will happen to Valley Plaza once demolition is completed, but some say it will be sorely missed.
“So many memories,” wrote Rhonda Theodoulou, who had her ninth birthday there. “It’s been a shame what that area has looked like for many years. I hope it’s developed into a newer thriving area again.”
Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
is an arts and general assignment reporter on LAist's Explore LA. team.
Published November 22, 2025 5:00 AM
"Marketplace" host Kai Ryssdal, left, with Joey Galloway, owner of a commercial property that was consumed in the Eaton fire.
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Andie Corban
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Marketplace
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Topline
Five Altadena businesses reopen Saturday with a community celebration after damage from the January fires.
Why it matters: These five Altadena businesses considered closing but have reopened to help the neighborhoods around them rebuild.
Details about the celebration: It’s taking place Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 2455 Lake Ave., Altadena
Read on ... to find details and to learn more about each business.
Five businesses at one of Altadena’s community hubs are celebrating their reopening today with a celebration after damage from the January fires.
The L.A. fires have displaced thousands of people, from residents to business owners, and destroyed a number of homes and businesses.
The five businesses at Mariposa Junction — located at the intersection of Lake Avenue and Mariposa Street — considered closing but have reopened to help their neighborhood rebuild.
“We’re just hoping that the people who are in the neighborhood will remember to come shop local and that hopefully some of the people, people who are displaced but close by will remember to come up and patronize the businesses as well,” said Caroline Britton, owner of Carciofi Design, one of the shops that's reopening.
Retro fashion boutique Sidecca, Betsy Restaurant, Ms. Dragon Print & Copy and McGinty's Gallery are also part of the reopening celebration.
The January fires were the most destructive in L.A. County history, killing at least 30 people and destroying more than 16,000 structures.
The one-year anniversary is approaching as efforts to rebuild are ongoing.
It will take years for residential and business areas to return to their vibrancy before the fires, if at all. That’s why these business owners want to celebrate this accomplishment.
Jill Replogle
covers public corruption, debates over our voting system, culture war battles — and more.
Published November 21, 2025 7:08 PM
Michael Gates at a news conference outside Huntington Beach City Hall on Oct. 14, 2024.
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Jill Replogle
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LAist
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Topline:
Michael Gates, a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General, produced a letter today that he said confirmed he was not fired for cause, but rather resigned from the Civil Rights Division of the federal Department of Justice.
The backstory: The Orange County Register last week reported Gates had been fired for cause, citing an anonymous DOJ source who said Gates repeatedly referred to women colleagues by derogatory and demeaning names and had complained about the department employing a pregnant woman. The Register also published a government employment form, which was undated, that they said showed that Gates was fired for cause.
Where things stand: Gates told LAist the allegations were “100% fabrication.” He shared a screenshot of a Nov. 21 letter from John Buchko, director of operational management at the DOJ, stating that the department “has accepted your voluntary resignation” and “will remove from your personnel record any previous reference to your termination.”
Michael Gates, a former deputy assistant attorney general, produced a letter Friday that he said confirmed he was not fired for cause, but rather resigned from the Civil Rights Division of the federal Department of Justice.
The Orange County Register last week reported that Gates had been fired for cause, citing an anonymous DOJ source who said Gates repeatedly referred to women colleagues by derogatory and demeaning names and had complained about the department employing a pregnant woman. The Register also published a government employment form, which was undated, that they said showed that Gates was fired for cause.
Gates told LAist the allegations were “100% fabrication.” Then on Friday, he shared a screenshot of a Nov. 21 letter from John Buchko, director of operational management at the DOJ, stating that the department “has accepted your voluntary resignation” and “will remove from your personnel record any previous reference to your termination.”
LAist reached out to Natalie Baldassarre, a DOJ spokesperson, to confirm the letter, sharing that screenshot. She responded by email: “No comment on personnel matters.”
Michael Gates provided this letter. A spokesperson for the department said they would not comment on personnel matters.
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Courtesy Michael Gates
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Back to Huntington Beach
Gates told LAist earlier this month that he was resigning from his job with the federal government because he missed Huntington Beach and his family. On Friday, the Huntington Beach City Council confirmed Gates has been hired back as chief assistant city attorney. He starts Monday.
Gates is both loved and loathed in politically contentious Huntington Beach. He has been an outspoken supporter of President Donald Trump and his policies and a continuous thorn in the side of Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is one of the most prominent critics of the president.
Gates was first elected city attorney in 2014 and has won re-election twice since then, with wide margins. Huntington Beach is among a minority of cities in California that elects rather than appoints a city attorney.
Gates' track record
As city attorney, Gates sued the state over housing mandates and the right to implement voter ID. He also marshalled the city into the center of culture war battles. While he was city attorney, his office sued California over the state’s sanctuary law, as well as a law prohibiting schools from requiring teachers to inform parents of a child’s request to change pronouns or otherwise “out” them as LGBTQ.
Many Huntington Beach residents support his work. But Gates has also faced heavy criticism and legal penalties, for some of his actions. In 2021, the city paid out $2.5 million total in a settlement with one former and one current employee who alleged age discrimination while working at the city under Gates. The city did not concede to any wrongdoing under the settlement.
Gates told LAist he’s looking forward to, once again, heading up the city’s litigation, including a scheduled trial against an effort to force Huntington Beach to adopt by-district elections. He said he plans to run again for city attorney in next year’s election.
