Comment by calibraxis

Oddly enough I never used this, but maybe named fns might help? (http://clojure.org/special_forms#Special%20Forms--%28fn%20na...)

    (fn my-name []
      (throw (Exception. "boom")))

(Sorry, I don't know Clojure internals well enough to have great answers to your explicit questions.)

[Edited: thanks to jerf for pointing out the inconsistency in a term I used.]