"Causing a chunk of ice formed on a high-/Flying airplane to plummet from the sky/And strike a farmer dead; hiding my keys,/ Glasses or pipe. Coordinating these/ Events and objects with remote events/And vanished objects. Making ornaments/ Of accidents and possibilities." (Pale Fire, John Shade).

Last week, while watching an episode of SCI, the detectives concluded that what had initially seemed to be a murder had simply resulted from a curious accident. They concluded that the fallen construction-worker (either in Miami or in NYC) had been killed by a chunk of ice that had dropped from an airplane.

I thought that John Shade or Kinbote had used the word "icicle" in Nabokov's novel but, apparently, they did not. Shade mentions "stilettos of a frozen stillicide" and Kinbote likens the poem "Pale Fire" (its structure), to a "crystal" and a snowflake, on the poet's watch, as a "crystal on crystal." There's no particular reason for investigating if Nabokov mentions icicles in PF. These are much lighter and smaller than what, in the TV-episode, was irritatingly designated as a "crapcicle" only to get me started on ice blocks, icicles and frozen stilettos...