It is with a little pain and a lot of jealousy that I looked over Brett Weiss’ photo sets (one, two) from this year’s Texas Pinball Festival. I always thought pinball, with its sense of tradition and physical energy, was a game well suited to New York, a city that boasts both qualities in spades. Yet we have to travel far and wide to find a good machine. There are a couple of notable upcoming pinball events in the Northeast: the mid-April Rochester Gameroom Show and August’s PAPA Championships in Pittsburgh. Those are closer than Texas, but around the “NYC area” only in a global sense.

If you want good pinball nearby, head to Brooklyn. I recommend Zablozki’s on 107 N 6th St., which has well-maintained Funhouse and Wheel of Fortune machines, and Enid’s on 560 Manhattan Ave., where you’ll find the Bally classic Creature From the Black Lagoon. Southpaw at 125 5th Ave. has a couple of recent pins, too, but at $1 a game and no discount for quantity buys, the price is a little dear.