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My first (admittedly crude & obnoxious) thought was that those parenthetical symbols represented two "cheeks", with the asterisk between them representing a descriptive term for Mazie that starts with "A" (in a figurative manner of speaking).
( )*( )
(Once again, I apologize for my inexcusably crude but sincere pictographic reference for Mazie.)
Don’t doodle Illary, my God, you’ll crash the internets!