to garnets chagrin , though , none of these celebrities deigned to cross seventh avenue with the intention of stepping over the wendelson threshold : instead , into garnets aspiring social circle , fluttering like moths around the flame of promised sponsorship , hovered the belgian mime artist arnold metz , the beat poet saffron davies , and the lavishly bespectacled painter monotone , who claimed to be something big on the fringes of the pop art movement , and there the ill-assorted trio stayed , like fish past their sell by date , for the better and worst part of the next two decades .