title: common lisp symbol matching
body: <p>I have an alist in the following form:</p>
  
  <pre><code>((|* bank accounts| (|account 1| |account 2|))
   (|* airline miles| (|account 1| |account 2|))
   .....
   .....)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I don't how to use <code>assoc</code> to access the symbols, since they're framed on both sides with "|".</p>