$ probably needs to demangle names by applying 'unpkg on them.
<User>tl: 'x
<User>x
<User>tl: (using <arc>v3-packages)
t
<User>tl: (unpkg 'x)
x
For that matter, while reviewing arc.arc, I noticed that there are quite a few file-related functions already exported from mzscheme into arc-space. I suspect bits of files.arc can be rewritten to use those functions instead.
Personally I think it's better to do something like this:
($.mzscheme-function param1 param2)
Then we can simply define $ as:
(mac $ (x)
`(seval ',(<arc>unpkg x)))
edit: pushed a version of files.arc on arc-f. To use, just (using <files>v1)