In France I imagine the streets teem with mimes, amusing passers by for change. In the US street performers are less common, with the usual entertainment being aggressive panhandlers accosting pedestrians, hopefully besides you.
In countries that are a hybrid of France and the US, like Britain, I propose that a hybrid of the two types of street entertainment might be well received. The bum mime will be rumpled and more than a little scary. He too will interact with pedestrians via street theater. He would swipe at invisible assailants, beg aggressively from nonexistent passersby, try hard to remove an invisible item stuck to his body (or possibly part of his body) and so on. He might wear a battered bike helmet to better enact pratfalls or fake tazing episodes. The bum mime might ape a real mime trying to do his act, imitating the mime in clumsy and offensive ways.
Like a real mime, the bum mime is silent. This is explained by his tracheostomy, which might be fake.-- bungston, May 31 2015 baked https://www.youtube...watch?v=2UI1Tni_-5U [pashute, Jun 01 2015] I envision the bum mime, hungry, checking his clothes for something that might be eaten. He finally locates an invisible object in his coat, pulling on it and munching. As he does, his one arm slowly disappears into his sleeve. He is horrified when he discovers this and runs around in grief and terror, sleeve flapping. Finally by vigorously rubbing the sleeve in a very questionable manner he gradually causes it to fill. He recruits the help of a passerby, possibly an invisible one, and his obvious attraction to this person causes his sleeve to fill fully and the hand to reemerge, holding a flower.-- bungston, May 31 2015 I would dare to guess that a number of starving street people are doing little more than mimeing the acts of survival anyway. Just today I saw a man look into a bin and pull out a second-hand glass of water to drink. This is 100 meters from both a gushing water fountain and a busy, Turkish-style mineral water complex where 1000s get their weekly water supply.-- 4and20, May 31 2015 Well, at least it's not in other:general.-- normzone, May 31 2015 There are a lot more homeless people on Paris' streets than mimes. That is, unless they're just really good mimes.-- zen_tom, Jun 02 2015 silly[+]-- Voice, Jun 03 2015 // countries that are a hybrid of France and the US, like Britain // - a bit off-topic but I think of the US as a hybrid of France and Britain, not the other way round, although I suppose they might be a three-way opposition.-- nineteenthly, Jun 04 2015 /unless they're just really good mimes/
The problem with Duchamp's urinal is that it was labeled as art, which more or less gives up the game. The bummime keeps you guessing: is this performance art or bizarre and disturbing eccentricity? Can you appreciate it either way?-- bungston, Jun 04 2015 What makes you think even the mime knows?-- nineteenthly, Jun 05 2015 The conspiratorial winking?-- bungston, Jun 05 2015 silent… but deadly-- bungston, Jun 05 2015 This is disappointing. I was expecting a mime that imitated the bums of passers by.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 06 2015 random, halfbakery