Egad, you are thoroughly right and I have rewritten the post. mentally smacks myself on the head Thank you, that is a much better implementation. I'm a little bit disappointed that it's so easy...
Uh-oh, the edit window has timed out on my post, and I've noticed that my version doesn't do any type-checking. That is el baddo. So far, it hasn't caused things to crash yet...
arc> (= x 'meh)
meh
arc> (= (car x) 2)
2
arc> x
meh
...but that's just luck and I wouldn't rely on it. [It does destroy the world when you set the car of a table.] Better version is here:
Man, I really wish I could continue editing my original post, 'cause without the type-checking, it's kind of a nuclear bomb in case someone accidentally uses it on a table. Perhaps I should just have left the post unchanged, or just added "Edit: Look in the comments for improvements" at the bottom.