I'm kind of shocked at how much of a shock this is, if you see what I mean. Actually, I reckon you all do.
Years ago, (there might have been some Elvis hagiography on the telly or something), some friends and I were wondering which musician/singer of our time would hit people as quite the same "end of an era" thing as older people seemed to think about Elvis or Marilyn Monroe or something, and we decided it would be David Bowie. Others were in the running, but we figured it would be Bowie. I am sad now to have a chance to find out if that is really the case. Shit, it really ought be to a hoax, though I know it's not. He's sort of immortal.